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Assignment | The American Dream & Great Gatsby Character Analysis (Black, Trainer): Quotes

ENGL 1301 / Dual-Credit English III | Ms. Black & Mrs. Trainer (Fall 2022)

Goals:

At least 16 embedded quotes total (4 per body paragraph)

At least 4 quotes from The Great Gatsby

Quoting Best Practices

  • If you're repeating text word-for-word from a source, it must be framed in quote marks. The quotes let your reader know you're borrowing the words and the ideas from the source.
  • Words inside quotes should match the source. You can make edits but there are standard ways of indicating where you've done so.
  • Quote the most important phrasing to make your point, not the entirety of the sentence or paragraph.

Citations

Because quotes are very specific pieces of info, your in-text citations should provide a page number.

The citation info goes outside the quote marks but before the period closing the sentence.

 

Parenthetical Citation:

Nick concludes that "Gatsby believed in the green light" (Fitzgerald 180).

Narrative Citation:

Fitzgerald ends with a bittersweet description of Gatsby's optimism, writing through Nick's observations that "Gatsby believed in the green light" (180).

Quotes should be faithful to the original, but we also want our quotes to flow with our own writing.

Needed Change How to Mark
Verb tense [ ] square brackets around the changed word or word fragment
Cut out unnecessary parts

... ellipsis (3 periods) to show where words were left out

Note: you don't need to do this if you're just pulling out a phrase like "green light," which does not need an ellipsis before nor after.
Adding clarity [ ] square brackets around the changed word

 

Original:

He looked at me sideways--and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. 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.

Example Modified Quote:

Gatsby fumbles his backstory to Nick when he "hurrie[s] ... or swallow[s] ... or choke[s]" on his claim that he studied at Oxford, and this one slip is enough to cast doubt on everything in Nick's mind. Nick even wonders if "there wasn't something a little sinister about [Gatsby], after all" (Fitzgerald ch. 4).
  • [Square brackets] show where I changed the verb tenses to suit my sentence better.
  • Omitted words are replaced by an ellipsis -- three periods in a row, ...
  • [Square brackets] also show where I swapped a "he" for "Gatsby" for clarity.

When you are quoting something that was already in quotes (like dialog), you'll switch the innermost pair of double quotes to single quotes (apostrophes).

You want to have 3 little tick marks, not 4.

Examples (with enlarged quote marks)

Gatsby explains to Nick that he volunteered his personal history to build trust, self-consciously revealing the heart of his persona when he states, "'I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody'" (Fitzgerald, ch. 4).
Gatsby's dream is not undone by being fanciful or unreal, but when it collides with the hollowness of his society, represented by Nick calling "George Wilson an 'ashen, fantastic figure,' not an image out of the real world encroaching on Gatsby's vision" (Goldblatt 120).
Nick doesn't speculate on the emotions between Tom and Daisy, "brushing off their motivations with the phrase 'whatever it was that kept them together'" (Goldblatt 117).

 

Wrong way: 2 double quotes (4 tick marks): Nick doesn't speculate on the emotions between Tom and Daisy, "brushing off their motivations with the phrase "whatever it was that kept them together"" (Goldblatt 117).

Your quotes should be padded by some original commentary and paraphrasing before and/or after the quote.

A signal phrase is just the fancy term for the words that introduce a quote.

Examples:

After producing proof of his story, Gatsby informs Nick that he is "'going to make a big request of [him] today'" (Fitzgerald ch. 4).

Dr. Suzanne del Gizzo, a professor of English literature, observes that Nick is "consistently presented in terms of emasculation and psychological crisis" (73).

 

This is counter to just dropping in standalone quotes (not recommended). E.g.,

Nick is at first skeptical of Gatsby's background. "He looked at me sideways--and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. 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" (Fitzgerald ch. 4).