“Can't repeat the past? Why, of course you can!” Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, said this to his friend Nick Carraway in order to convince both himself and Nick that he could recapture Daisy Buchanan, his former love.
'My God, I believe [Gatsby is] coming,' said Tom . . . 'I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish. '
When Nick told Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past," Gatsby replied, "Why of course you can!" Do you agree with Nick or Gatsby? I believe that you can do your best to duplicate something from the past, but it will not be exactly as it was before.
It is impossible to repeat the past because even though you are trying to do the same things as before the results will always change.
This quote belongs in Chapter 6 of Francis Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel, “The Great Gatsby.” To which Gatsby replies, “Can't repeat the past? Why, of course, you can!” This conversation gives a hint about Gatsby's intention to return Daisy Buchanan, his past love.
Terms in this set (37)"When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire." ... "Turning a corner, I saw that it was ______'s house, lit from tower to cellar." ... "Your place looks like the World's fair." ... "He looked at me with suppressed eagerness." ... "I talked with Miss Baker.More items...
When Nick cautions Gatsby that "You can't repeat the past," Gatsby idealistically answers "Why of course you can!" words that strike Nick soundly because of their "appalling sentimentality," which both delights and disgusts him.
Nick tells him that she did causing him to say " you can't repeat the past" Gatsby wants to go back to the way it was before and have Daisy tell Tom she never loved him.
To Nick's statement that "you can't repeat the past" Gatsby replies incredulously, "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" Gatsby is confident that he will be able to repeat the past of when he and Daisy first met now that he has the money to attract her attention. His view is very simplistic and naive.
"Why of course you can!" He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. This is probably Gatsby's single most famous quote.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”
Gatsby is not so much obsessed with repeating the past as reclaiming it. He wants to both return to that beautiful, perfect moment when he wedded all of his hopes and dreams to Daisy in Louisville, and also to make that past moment his present (and future!).
The Outsiders Chapter 6 Quotes "She was afraid of loving you, I thought. So Cherry Valance, the cheerleader, Bob's girl, the Soc, was trying to help us. No, it wasn't Cherry the Soc who was helping us, it was Cherry the dreamer who watched sunsets and couldn't stand fights."
When Nick cautions Gatsby that "You can't repeat the past," Gatsby idealistically answers "Why of course you can!" words that strike Nick soundly because of their "appalling sentimentality," which both delights and disgusts him.
It now sounds like a fantasy of a perfect world, a kind of heaven, relating back to crooks' point that 'Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. '
It was encapsulated in the moment of Gatsby and Daisy's first kiss. As soon as Gatsby kissed Daisy, all of his fantasies about himself and his future fixated solely on her.