Why of course you can!" (Fitzgerald, 117). CONTEXT: Gatsby is talking to Nick about how his life was much better when he was with Daisy, and now he wants her back. Nick, in turns, tells Gatsby that he should move on, because the past cannot be repeated. SIGNIFICANCE: Gatsby is the man that has all the glamour, the riches, the success - and also being the perfect bachelor, but the …
Mar 29, 2019 · At one point, Nick tells Gatsby that “you cannot repeat the past,” to which Gatsby replies, “Why of course you can!” How does the past shape the …
May 15, 2014 · “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. However, some of Fitzgerald’s critics argue that, on a second level, Fitzgerald is asking this question of his own …
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.
How does Gatsby react to Nick's statement about Daisy, "I wouldn't ask too much of her. You Can't repeat the past." He replies, "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!"
"I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't repeat the past." "Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously.
An example of Gatsby's unwillingness to believe the past is unchangeable occurs during a conversation between Nick. Nick says to Gatsby “you can't repeat the past”(71) “Can't repeat the past why of course you can “(71) replied Gatsby, The way Gatsby replies truly shows how much Gatsby believes …show more content…
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
How does Gatsby react to Nick's statement about Daisy, “I wouldn't ask too much of her. You can't repeat the past”? He replies, “Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!”
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.Nov 12, 2021
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.
Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke [Myrtle's] nose with his open hand. The event described here occurs in Chapter 2, when Myrtle insists on her right to say Daisy's name aloud in Tom's presence.
Fitzgerald has created a character obsessed with the idea of perfect reality in Jay Gatsby; the "perfect reality" being the achievement of the American Dream. Gatsby, who has managed to acquire sought out wealth and new money status through bootlegging is still not satisfied, as he yearns greatly for Daisy whom he believes is the key to the completion of his American Dream. Gatsby's desperation for Daisy and the American Dream is apparent when he stands with his "hands in still his pockets", "reclining against the mantlepiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease". The act of putting his hands in his pockets appears very collected and self-assured, as should the move of reclining against a mantelpiece; however Fitzgerald describes Gatsby's action as a "strained counterfeit of perfect ease", the words "strained" and "counterfeit" exposing how Gatsby is faking his cool to try and hide his nervousness. Gatsby's inability to stay calm during his encounter with Daisy represents his build up of anticipation for his ideal reality that he is so desperate to obtain. Gatsby's fixation for the American Dream is exemplified further when he catches the falling clock. The mantelpiece clock, which symbolizes Gatsby and Daisy's time spent together in the past, is "defunct" because they have not met since five years ago, thus time on the clock, as well as Gatsby's image of Daisy, has halted since they last met. Instead of letting the broken clock fall and break, Gatsby catches it, unable to let go of the broken past as he clings on to the no longer existing conception of Daisy, who he desperately needs it to be real for the sake of his American Dream. Despite all of Gatsby's efforts to achieve his American Dream, he is killed before he does, and with this pitiful conclusion Fitzgerald is critiquing not only the falsity of the American Dream, but also the futility of perfection that we humans so eagerly strive for. Gatsby dies chasing for this impossible notion of perfection — of perfect status, perfect family, and a perfect society where all honest effort is rewarded — otherwise known as the American Dream. However the very character who is supposed to represent the virtue of the American Dream is immoral; the very character who is supposed to represent the glamour of the American Dream is never content with his life. With this, Gatsby serves as Fitzgerald's reminder that ideals are not reality, that corruption will always exist, and that perfection is not what we should strive for.
Gatsby’s desperation is seen in chapter 6 where Gatsby meets Daisy. “In a strained counterfeit of perfect ease”, Gatsby is very nervous, meeting and talking to Daisy for the first time in a while. Gatsby then leans against a mantle piece, tipping a “defunct” “clock” off of it.
As in the chapter 6, Fitzgerald described Gatsby as ambitious and always move forwards and never give up easily. I feel like as Gatsby grew older he's lost those ambitions since he took the easier and immoral way to archive his American dream, since he kind of noticed that it will never happen, no matter how hard he's trying. (This is linking back to the chapter 3 about Vally of Ashes.) Anyways, I feel that James Gatz are more indicated and more committed to his goals and life more than Jay Gatsby. ""
It is shown in passage one that there is an old clock that had stopped at Gatsby’s house. The clock symbolises Gatsby’s past about Daisy. Nick says that they “all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor” showing that they all thought that the ideal image of Daisy is broken in Gatsby. When he tips the clock, he “caught it with his trembling fingers, and set it back in place.” This shows how Gatsby is wanting to protect his past: the image of an ideal life with Daisy. Passage two supports the idea of Gatsby relying about his past. When Nick says to Gatsby that he “can’t repeat the past,” Gatsby “looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand,” and says he is “going to fix everything just the way it was before.” Gatsby strongly denies that the past can not be repeated, as Gatsby is dreaming about his dream of his past, an ideal life with Daisy. The past lurking in the house shows why Gatsby is trying to protect everything that represents the past in his house, such as the old clock. The way he says fix shows that he is dreaming of the past, and thinks that the present is not “right”. This is because it is not like Gatsby’s ideal life, and he thinks that his ideal life is what Daisy will want too. This shows how Gatsby is an egoist, by showing that he is doing everything for his ideal life. This criticizes the idea of the American Dream as Gatsby is illegally making money for his own ideal, while the people in the Valley of Ashes are working hard legally for their family.
Gatsby believes he is able to repeat the past because of the dreamlike state he lives in, having no firm grip on reality. Gatsby must believe that he can repeat the past in order to make the idea of regaining Daisy (even though she has since married Tom and had a child) a realistic possibility. Click to see full answer.
While Gatsby feels certain that “of course you can,” my own answer is different than his. No, you can't repeat the past. Simply, you can't repeat the past because you are not the same person you were in the past. Consequently, what is Gatsby's response when Nick warns him that you cant repeat the past?
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.
It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a row-boat, pulled out to the Tuolomee and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.
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.".
James Gatz—that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career—when he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior.
The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy ...