what is the significance of this quote "“ ‘Can’t repeat that past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!" This is significant because Gatsby wanted to re-live the past. He wanted to re-shape what has already taken place and somehow will his future with Daisy to happen.
Full Answer
“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.
“Can't repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “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. “I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly.
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.
Nick tells Gatsby, in reference to Daisy, "You can't repeat the past." Gatsby replies "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" Why is Gatsby so insistent that the past can (and will) be repeated?
In response to Nick Gatsby say's "can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" This truly highlights his inability to accept the truth, being that Daisy has moved on and is married with a child. It is not only foolish, it is delusional to think that you can turn back time.
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.
Answer and Explanation: Although there is no specific literary term to be found in lines 6-8, there is a literary technique: flashback.
Nick know that you can't and shouldn't repeat the past, but Gatsby thinks he can just erase the last five years and start over again. His opinion is unrealistic because it's been five years and both of them have changed.
LITERATURE. The theme of The Great Gatsby is that past cannot be repeated and everybody has to move forward in life. The author of the book F. Scott Fitzgerald was a popular writer in the 1920s and by using plot, style, figurative language, character, and setting he is able to develop the theme.
How could Gatsby wanting to recreate the past end up causing a problem? You can not create the past, but Gatsby is a dreamer and thinks he is God and is always in control. How did James Gatz become Jay Gatsby? when he met Dan Cody he changed his name because he no longer wanted to be the poor boy from North Dakota.
James GatzIn The Great Gatsby, Gatsby's real name is James Gatz, who was originally from North Dakota. Nick says that Gatsby changed his name "at the age of seventeen . . .
At first, Gatsby's reunion with Daisy is terribly awkward. Gatsby knocks Nick's clock over and tells Nick sorrowfully that the meeting was a mistake. After he leaves the two alone for half an hour, however, Nick returns to find them radiantly happy—Daisy shedding tears of joy and Gatsby glowing.
“Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "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.”
'You can't repeat the past.' 'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. '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. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is significant because Gatsby wanted to re-live the past. He wanted to re-shape what has already taken place and somehow will his future with Daisy to happen.
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So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. (ch. ix) Another difference between the two sorts of hero is in what they recognize as real. Nick and Gatsby see different realities, Gatsby's is naturally that of the hero of romance. The everyday is unreal for him; reality is what he has discovered through his dreams. The hero of the novel of sentimental ...
“You can’t repeat the past,” says Nick Carraway to Jay Gatsby. 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.
At the same time, she knows he is cheating with Myrtle Wilson. By the way, there is an unexpected turn of events. At the end of the story, Daisy hits Myrtle, who doesn’t survive in a car accident. The story is told by Nick Carraway, who meets Gatsby upon arriving in New York.
There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy's eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.
Gatsby's notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he fell just short of being news.
Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. "She's lovely," said Daisy. "The man bending over her is her director.".
Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together. "Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?" he said. "A fellow's getting off some funny stuff."
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The light at the end of Daisy's pier is that secret place where Gatsby hopes to climb and "gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder," the image of Daisy that he holds in his heart. It is all but a dream, an illusion of a past, a quest for love and happiness that is never realized for the tragic Gatsby, who lies dead, a sacrificial victim to the excesses of an age.
In chapter 6 of F. Scott Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby, the reader finally learns the true story of how Gatsby became who he is. There are several quotes in this chapter that explain not just Gatsby's story, but who he is as a person. For instance, consider how the narrator Nick says that.
This ability on Gatsby's part is really an ability to fantasize though, and so it does not convincingly defeat or undermine Nick's point.
"sundials and brick walks and burning gardens". The use of plurals suggests that with the Buchanans, money is no object. "the front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold.".
It shows the human condition to hang onto happier times/missed opportunities
The negative tone Nick utalises when he talks about Tom instantly tells the reader to dislike him.
Jay Gatsby makes this response to Nick Carraway ’s statement, “You can’t repeat the past.” Their conversation occurs after Daisy and Tom Buchanan have left a party at Gatsby’s house. It is the first one they have attended, and Gatsby can tell that Daisy did not like it. Nick is...
Gatsby is incredulous in part because of what Nick says , and in part because he had thought Nick was entirely on his wavelength in his plan to rekindle Daisy’s love. Gatsby does not want to repeat the entire past, only select moments of the past.
Nick tries to warn him that this can't be done. Gatsby's response shows that he completely rejects Nick's commonsense warning. Gatsby's tragedy is that he can't accept that the passage of time changes circumstances. Daisy has a husband and child. She is not the person she was five years ago.
What Gatsby does not—or will not, or cannot—understand is that it was that anticipation and that hint of physical contact that made the moment so perfect for both of them. He tries to convince himself that he, Daisy, and Tom can meet socially as a way to get closer to her. The effect, of course, is to make her nervous and Tom jealous. His next step will be to stop socializing and have Daisy come to his house alone.
Gatsby does not want to repeat the entire past, only select moments of the past. He wants to believe he can pick and choose the best fragments of his shattered past and in doing so block out the unpleasant ones. Rather than the horrors of war, for example, he remembers the months he spent at Oxford. The focus of this selective reinvention is Daisy. While she has been his ideal, the corporeal aspect of their relationship centered on a single perfect kiss. The build up to that kiss has created an idyllic vision in his mind. It remains unfocused in his mind that it is part of himself that he is trying to recover. Nick says, “He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.”
Jay Gatsby makes this response to Nick Carraway ’s statement, “You can’t repeat the past.” Their conversation occurs after Daisy and Tom Buchanan have left a party at Gatsby’s house. It is the first one they have attended, and Gatsby can tell that Daisy did not like it. Nick is...
Gatsby is incredulous in part because of what Nick says , and in part because he had thought Nick was entirely on his wavelength in his plan to rekindle Daisy’s love. Gatsby does not want to repeat the entire past, only select moments of the past.
Nick tries to warn him that this can't be done. Gatsby's response shows that he completely rejects Nick's commonsense warning. Gatsby's tragedy is that he can't accept that the passage of time changes circumstances. Daisy has a husband and child. She is not the person she was five years ago.
What Gatsby does not—or will not, or cannot—understand is that it was that anticipation and that hint of physical contact that made the moment so perfect for both of them. He tries to convince himself that he, Daisy, and Tom can meet socially as a way to get closer to her. The effect, of course, is to make her nervous and Tom jealous. His next step will be to stop socializing and have Daisy come to his house alone.
Gatsby does not want to repeat the entire past, only select moments of the past. He wants to believe he can pick and choose the best fragments of his shattered past and in doing so block out the unpleasant ones. Rather than the horrors of war, for example, he remembers the months he spent at Oxford. The focus of this selective reinvention is Daisy. While she has been his ideal, the corporeal aspect of their relationship centered on a single perfect kiss. The build up to that kiss has created an idyllic vision in his mind. It remains unfocused in his mind that it is part of himself that he is trying to recover. Nick says, “He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.”