Mcteague In The Great Gatsby

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E. “With 1500 of them out there converting 2 Chinamen apiece per annum against an uphill birthrate of 33,000 pagans per day, it will take upwards of a million years to make the conversions balance the output…” (Twain 4) This quote comes from Mark Twain’s essay entitled “The United States of Lyncherdom”; for Twain, a southern man, to write such a liberal essay at the time when lynching was popular is really quite a bold move. Unfortunately it was not published until after his death for he feared that he would not have a friend left in the world (Twain 1). Anyhow, the overall message of Twain’s essay is his loss of faith in humanity for people, especially those who call themselves Christians, to commit such horrible acts. That theme can tie …show more content…
Quotation Explication of McTeague and The Great Gatsby or A Lost Lady
H. “What strange sixth sense stirred in McTeague at this time? What animal cunning, what brute instinct clamored for recognition and obedience? What lower faculty was it that roused his suspicion that drove him out into the night a score of times between dark and dawn, his head in the air, his eyes and ears keenly alert” (Norris)
This quotation comes from chapter 20 of McTeague by Frank Norris. After a quick read, I interpreted this quote as McTeague saying that he has had enough with all of the crap going on around him, but this is only an interpretation from a small portion of text. If you tie this quote in with the overall text, it can mean a lot more. We learn that McTeague is a really strong, big, tough guy and that while he is working on Trina, he becomes somewhat of a monster. According to the narrator, “[McTeague] recoiled from it, banding all his strength to the issue. ‘No, by God! No, by God!’ He turned to his work…[s]uddenly he leaned over and kissed her” (Norris). When I initially read quote choice H., I thought it actually came from the section where he kissed Trina while working on her teeth. The narrator mentions McTeague’s “sixth sense” and “brute instinct” (Norris), McTeague is truly somewhat of an animal. I feel like this ties in with realism because “[r]ealist writers try to…give a clear picture of modern life and all its class struggles with characters who face a harsh reality” (Permenter).
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Scott Fitzgerald and was spoken between Nick, the narrator, and Gatsby; it happens in a section of the novel after Gatsby and Daisy start talking again and Gatsby starts “falling” for Daisy. Nick and Gatsby go for a walk through Gatsby’s garden and Nick states, “You can’t repeat the past” (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby actually seems to get a little upset by this statement and starts a little rant talking about how you can repeat the past. He believes that he is able to repeat the love between him and Daisy that they once had many years ago. Here the reader can see that the two characters hold two opinions. One, Nick, believes that the past cannot be repeated while Gatsby believes it can. I believe after this part, Gatsby starts to go a little insane over Daisy; this is also where Gatsby starts falling more in love with Daisy’s money than Daisy herself. repeating the past because he used to date Daisy at one time and now he wants to date her again and have the same feeling he did many years ago. Nick and Gatsby seem to have two separate beliefs. Nick believes that one cannot repeat the past and Gatsby believes one can. At this point I believe Gatsby starts going a little insane and confuses his love for Daisy’s money for real

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