Quotation bank english

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key themes, concepts, and literary devices found in The Great Gatsby and 1984, aiding in understanding and interpretation of both texts.

Identity and Self-Discovery

The Great Gatsby - "I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." Fitzgerald uses first-person narration through Nick to depict the paradox of identity. The conflicting emotions highlight his role as both an observer and participant in the Jazz Age.

Identity and Self-Discovery

The Great Gatsby - "The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself…" The reference to a "Platonic conception" underscores Gatsby’s self-invention. His identity is not inherent but constructed to fulfill an ideal, showing identity as performative.

Identity and Self-Discovery

1984 - "Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood." Orwell contrasts "loved" and "understood" to highlight Winston’s need for identity validation in a society that suppresses individuality.

Identity and Self-Discovery

1984 - "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." The Party's control over perception erases individual identity. Orwell’s authoritative tone emphasizes how systematic deception destroys selfhood.

Power and Oppression

The Great Gatsby - "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy…" The tricolon structure ("smashed up things and creatures…") highlights how the wealthy exploit others without facing consequences.

Power and Oppression

The Great Gatsby - "Her voice is full of money." Fitzgerald uses synesthesia to show how Daisy embodies wealth, making economic power inseparable from attraction and influence.

Power and Oppression

1984 - "Power is not a means; it is an end…" Orwell’s chiasmus emphasizes that power exists for its own perpetuation, exposing the raw mechanics of oppression.

Power and Oppression

1984 - "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever." Orwell’s violent imagery distills totalitarian power into an unforgettable metaphor, emphasizing its perpetual nature.

Illusion vs. Reality

The Great Gatsby - "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us." The green light symbolizes hope and illusion. The personification of the future as "receding" highlights the unattainability of dreams.

Illusion vs. Reality

The Great Gatsby - "The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart…" The stark contrast between a "world falling apart" and the passive "stare blankly" underscores the moment when illusion collapses into reality.

Illusion vs. Reality

1984 - "The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak—was startlingly different from any other object in sight." Orwell uses architectural imagery to symbolize the Party’s manipulation of reality, making deception physically imposing.

Illusion vs. Reality

1984 - "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously…" Orwell’s neologism "doublethink" reflects how totalitarianism forces individuals to accept contradictions, dissolving the boundary between illusion and reality.

The Corruption of Dreams

The Great Gatsby - "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" Gatsby’s exclamation reveals his fundamental delusion. The rhetorical question followed by an emphatic assertion illustrates his denial of reality.

The Corruption of Dreams

The Great Gatsby - "He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close…" The spatial metaphor ("long way," "so close") highlights the illusion that dreams are within reach, even as they remain unattainable.

The Corruption of Dreams

1984 - "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." Orwell constructs a perfect paradox to demonstrate how the Party prevents revolution by controlling awareness itself.

The Corruption of Dreams

1984 - "Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one." Orwell critiques how reality is dictated by social consensus. The phrase "minority of one" redefines sanity as conformity, erasing independent thought.

Language and Communication

The Great Gatsby - "Her voice is full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it." Fitzgerald's synesthesia transforms Daisy's voice into a symbol of wealth. The repetition emphasizes total identification, while musical imagery suggests wealth’s seductive quality. This reveals how language in the novel is inseparable from class—communication itself becomes commodified.

Language and Communication

The Great Gatsby - "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars." Fitzgerald uses a simile comparing guests to moths, emphasizing both their attraction to Gatsby's brightness and their fleeting nature. The placement of "whisperings" between "champagne" and "stars" elevates gossip to the level of physical pleasure and cosmic beauty, revealing language as a form of illusion.

Language and Communication

1984 - "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" Orwell reveals that linguistic control is the ultimate form of thought control. By systematically eliminating vocabulary, the Party eliminates the conceptual tools necessary for dissent.

Language and Communication

1984 - "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words." Orwell employs devastating irony through this aesthetic appreciation of linguistic destruction, showing how totalitarianism corrupts not just language itself but our relationship to it.

Memory and the Past

The Great Gatsby - "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Fitzgerald's concluding metaphor transforms human striving into futile resistance against time. The alliteration creates rhythm mimicking waves, reinforcing the inescapable pull of the past. Gatsby’s memories drive his ambition but prevent him from seeing reality.

Memory and the Past

The Great Gatsby - "I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before. She'll see." Fitzgerald employs dramatic irony, as readers understand the impossibility of Gatsby's plan while he remains oblivious. The simplistic phrasing ("fix everything") highlights Gatsby's naivety. Memory becomes distorted through desire.

Memory and the Past

1984 - "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." Orwell’s chiasmus creates a closed logical loop mirroring the Party’s circular control. The repetition of "controls" emphasizes power, showing how totalitarianism weaponizes memory to eliminate resistance.

Memory and the Past

1984 - "At the time when it happens you do mean it." Orwell uses second-person address to implicate the reader directly. The progression from hypothetical ("perhaps") to certainty ("that isn't true") mirrors Winston’s journey from resistance to capitulation. The Party replaces authentic memories with manufactured guilt and fear.

Love and Relationships

The Great Gatsby - "He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God." Fitzgerald uses religious imagery to transform a kiss into an existential commitment. The contrast between "unutterable" (eternal) and "perishable" (temporary) creates tension between ideal and reality, showing love as both fulfillment and limitation.

Love and Relationships

The Great Gatsby - "They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren't unhappy either." The negative definition ("weren't happy," "weren't unhappy") creates an ambiguous emotional state. The untouched food suggests distraction, while "conspiring" implies both connection and isolation from others, representing the moral ambiguity of relationships.

Love and Relationships

1984 - "Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me." Orwell transforms a children's rhyme into a haunting reflection on betrayal, with the parallel structure creating perfect reciprocity. The contrast between a pastoral image and transactional betrayal shows how love is corrupted under totalitarianism.

Love and Relationships

1984 - "The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account." Orwell highlights the Party’s psychological manipulation. The repetition of "mere" diminishes emotions, while "robbing" suggests violent theft of agency, making love impossible under oppression.

Social Class and Inequality

The Great Gatsby - "The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up… the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene." Fitzgerald uses bleak imagery to create a physical representation of social inequality. The forced observation of the valley of ashes suggests the wealthy’s complicity in a system that produces such desolation.

Social Class and Inequality

The Great Gatsby - "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money." Fitzgerald employs a tricolon to emphasize the destructive cycle of the wealthy elite. The metaphor of "smashing" extends to human lives, showing how economic privilege shields them from consequences.

Social Class and Inequality

1984 - "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." Orwell presents Winston's belief as both hopeful and ironic. The conditional "if" introduces doubt, while the proles’ apathy contrasts with their theoretical revolutionary potential. Class consciousness alone is insufficient for resistance.

Social Class and Inequality

1984 - "The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism." Orwell uses "lashed" to suggest both coercion and animal