Quite the Quote -Gatsby | Blogmas Day 6

Hello again honeybees! Today I’m excited to participate in weekly meme started by Kelly over at Another Book In The Wall, Quite the Quote. This is the perfect opportunity to analyze quotes from my favorite books, and I can’t wait to get started so here we go! (This is late because…life.)

*very mild spoilers ahead*

“Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

There are so many quotes in this book that I can’t wait to analyze but this one. This. It gets me everytime and I’m going to try my best to explain why.

Nick Carraway and I have a lot in common, and the similarites only grow as I mature. He is very sensitive to other’s and his own emotions, and I feel that. Personally, I feel a lot of emotions all at once and I can never imagine describing them as elloquently as Fitzgerald does in Gatsby. To capture Nick’s rejection, and essentially his moving on from the woman and New York, in this simple sentence is incredible. 

Another point I’ve seen made in the countless analyses of Gatsby is that it so very clearly states “half in love.” Nick was never fully in love with her, just as he may have never been truly in love with anything in New York. It was the idea of New York, the idea of Gatsby, that kept him entracened. And when those fell apart, Nick saw the ugly truth of his condition, and left. 

This quote is just so emotional and you can call me a silly little girl all you want but I will never take an emotional work for granted, especially when it is written in such beautiful prose as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.