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From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale . . . and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near . . .
From West Egg came the Poles and the Mulreadys and Cecil Roebuck and Cecil Schoen . . . and Newton Orchid, who controlled Films Par Excellence, and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen and Don S. Schwartze (the son) and Arthur McCarty, all connected with the movies in one way or another . . . and James B. (“Rot-Gut”) Ferret and the De Jongs and Ernest Lilly—they came to gamble, and when Ferret wandered into the garden it meant he was cleaned out and Associated Traction would have to fluctuate profitably the next day.
These two quotes from the near the start of Chapter 4 points out the sharp distinctions between the residents of East Egg and West Egg. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Setting: East Egg and West Egg (the Chapter 4 quote).
[Gatsby] was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American—that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.
Early in Chapter 4, Gatsby drives his Rolls-Royce to Nick’s house so they can go into the city for lunch. Here, Nick describes Gatsby’s frenetic manner and nervous ticks.
He hurried the phrase “educated at Oxford,” or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him now. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him, after all.
In this passage, Gatsby’s odd speech patterns make Nick question the veracity of what he says once again. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Character: Jay Gatsby (the Chapter 4 quote).
It was a photograph of half a dozen young men in blazers loafing in an archway through which were visible a host of spires. There was Gatsby, looking a little, not much, younger—with a cricket bat in his hand.
Then it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest of rubies to ease, with their crimson-lighted depths, the gnawings of his broken heart.
‘I'm going to make a big request of you today,’ he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction, ‘so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody. You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me.’ He hesitated. ‘You'll hear about it this afternoon.’
Gatsby unexpectedly shares bits of information about his past to Nick and then quickly admits that his reason for doing so is that he’s going to ask a big favor of Nick and that he didn’t Nick to think he “was just some nobody.” This statement will prove to be particularly significant later, when Nick learns more about Gatsby’s origins.
Then the valley of ashes opened out on both sides of us, and I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson straining at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by.
As Gatsby drives Nick through the valley of ashes on their way to New York City, Nick catches sight of Myrtle Wilson as she is pumping gas outside of her husband’s garage, once again drawing attention to the sharp contrasts between the valley of ashes and the surrounding areas. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Symbol: The Valley of Ashes (the Chapter 4 quote).
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars. . . . The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
As Gatsby and Nick cross over the Queensborough Bridget into Manhattan, Nick rhapsodizes about the beauty and promise of the city. This passage is further explained in Quotes by Setting: New York City (the Chapter 4 quote).
‘Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,’ I thought; ‘anything at all. . . .’ Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.
This passage from the car ride Gatsby and Nick take to New York City suggests that the city (serving as a symbol of the United States in general) is a place of almost limitless possibilities—in contrast to societies who you are and what family you were born into weigh more heavily. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Theme: The American Dream (the Chapter 4 quote).
[Wolfsheim] flipped his sleeves up under his coat. ‘Yeah, Gatsby’s very careful about women. He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.’
While Gatsby and Nick have lunch in New York City, they encounter Meyer Wolfsheim, an acquaintance of Gatsby, who we will later learn is a gambler and a gangster and, in fact, an associate of Gatsby. Wolfsheim describes Gatsby to Nick as “a perfect gentleman” and “the kind of man you'd like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister” before uttering the ironic above quote. Whether or not Wolfsheim believes any of his statements about Gatsby is debatable, it is clear that Nick is not alone in being susceptible to Gatsby’s considerable charms.
. . . the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
I was bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress—and as drunk as a monkey. She had a bottle of sauterne in one hand and a letter in the other.
‘ ‘Gratulate me,’ she muttered. ‘Never had a drink before but oh, how I do enjoy it.’
‘What's the matter, Daisy?’
I was scared, I can tell you; I'd never seen a girl like that before.
‘Here, dearis.’ She groped around in a waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out the string of pearls. ‘Take ‘em downstairs and give ‘em back to whoever they belong to. Tell ‘em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say 'Daisy's change’ her mine!’
Here, Jordan tells Nick about Daisy having second thoughts about marrying Tom, although she ultimately went through with the wedding the next day. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Theme: Love and Marriage (the Chapter 4 quote).
They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but [Daisy] came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn’t drink. It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don’t see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all—and yet there’s something in that voice of hers. . .
Here, Nick state that Daisy’s reputation is high among the affluent set she runs with and—without actually complimenting her—he explores why he thinks that is the case. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Character: Daisy Buchanan (the Chapter 4 quote).
A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: ‘There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.’
This passage comes just after Nick has learned of Gatsby and Jordan’s plan to use him as the conduit for Gatsby reuniting with his love from the past, Daisy. Nick suddenly decides that people fall into one of four categories: the pursued (like Daisy), who are in demand; the pursuing (like Gatsby), who actively try to achieve their dreams; the busy (perhaps like Tom), who are satisfied with what they have and do not want change; and the tired, who the system has already defeated.
Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face.
In passage at the end of Chapter 4 Nick contrasts the way that Gatsby and Tom feel about Daisy to the way he feels about Jordan. Read one way, it sounds like he’s comparing himself favorably to the other men, since he sees Jordan as a person while they see Daisy more as an ideal than a human being. Read another way, however, it could be argued that he envies them for the being passionate about Daisy, when his feelings about Jordan are clearly more unremarkable. Read more about this passage at Quotes by Character: Nick Carraway (the Chapter 4 quote).
