The Great Gatsby: Connector: Period 1
“He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”
This quote made by Nick reminds me of a quote from the movie, “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton.” In the movie a boy likes a girl named RosaLee and he describes her as “having six smiles.”
“Like do you know she has six smiles? One when something really makes her laugh. One when she’s making plans. One when she is laughing out of politeness. One when she is uncomfortable. One when she is making fun of herself. And one when… she’s talking about her friends.”
In both of these quotes, the men are describing people and how much they like the other person’s smile and how good it makes them and others feel. It seems that Gatsby will be a very interesting character to follow just after reading this quote.
What do you think about the quote?
-Maddie Zinn
Category: Connector 2 comments »
March 21st, 2009 at 6:31 pm
The quote made by Nick makes Gatsby seem like a very interesting character. The way that he is smiling makes him sound kind of stuck up and very sure of himself, as if he things too highly of himself. Yet Nick respects him for this smile so you have to wonder if he really is stuck up. I agree that it will be interesting to follow Gatsby because we never have had a real meeting with him yet in the story. At this time I am not sure if I like of dislike Gatsby!
~Lauren Gress~
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:26 pm
To answer this I’m going to go back to what I wrote on my own post. One of the things I talked about was how Fitzgerald uses the physical features of a character to describe how they act as well. This quote about Gatsby gives us a little insight to him even though we know nothing about him. The smile is described as being confident and understanding. This might very well be how Gatsby’s character will act. This quote also makes me wonder if Gatsby has been through a lot more than we had thought him to be. So far we know only that he is very rich and has gotten his money through a relative. Other than that we don’t really know about him as a person. What kind of struggles did he face growing up? What were his parents like? Perhaps his smile is understanding because he knows what it’s like to be in that other position. He is definitely a different character than the others around him. Let’s hope that he stays that way!
Erin B