Quote
Nick Carraway
“ I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer scared. If that was true that he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. he must have looked up at the unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being reran, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about....like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”
--------------------- Fitzgerald, 162.
“ I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn't believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer scared. If that was true that he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. he must have looked up at the unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being reran, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about....like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”
--------------------- Fitzgerald, 162.
Significants
- Gatsby believed that no one would ever find out the truth about the accident.
- Gatsby just might not have cared either way what happened to him at this point. Because he feels hopeless about getting Daisy’s heart back, he does not stand for his American dream anymore.
- Fitzgerald uses the withering of roses to show that the dream, which once blossomed, inspiring wonder and the capacity to strive towards our goals, has withered in a materialistic world that has lost sight of true happiness.
- Gatsby just might not have cared either way what happened to him at this point. Because he feels hopeless about getting Daisy’s heart back, he does not stand for his American dream anymore.
- Fitzgerald uses the withering of roses to show that the dream, which once blossomed, inspiring wonder and the capacity to strive towards our goals, has withered in a materialistic world that has lost sight of true happiness.
Symbolism
Rose: Like the Shakespearean reference, the rose represents love, Gatsby is experiencing disappointment in having attained his ideal and found his love to be grotesque.
Sunshine on Scarcely Grass: His love has only just started to grow like the seedlings on a “scarsely” grown grass, which however is illuminated by the sun and allows him to see exactly what she is and it is not pretty.
Sunshine on Scarcely Grass: His love has only just started to grow like the seedlings on a “scarsely” grown grass, which however is illuminated by the sun and allows him to see exactly what she is and it is not pretty.