Chapter 4

Select a passage that gives the reader background information about Gatsby.

“He’s a bootlegger,” said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. “One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass" (Fitzgerald 61).

Gatsby remains a mystery to most people, and there are may rumors that surround him. In the below passage, a little more of Gatsby's personality is shown.

" 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 I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all" ( Fitzgerald 65).

The sentence "He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford", or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before" shows how Gatsby is somewhat secretive and a liar. Gatsby's eagerness to rush the details of his past makes it seem as if Gatsby is hiding something. The indefinite answers that Gatsby gives shows that he thinks he can get away with almost anything just because he has money.