-
incessantly
without interruption
I couldn't sleep all night; a fog-horn was groaning
incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage frightening dreams.
Nick is using the adverb "incessantly" to describe the groaning of a foghorn, which foreshadows his attempts to warn Gatsby that something bad was going to happen and echoes the "hollow, wailing sound which issued incessantly from the garage" (which was George Wilson grieving over the dead body of his wife Myrtle).
-
redolent
serving to bring to mind
There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and
redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered.
-
ravenous
extremely hungry
He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously--eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.
-
unscrupulous
without principles
He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously--eventually he took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to touch her hand.
-
stratum
people having the same social or economic status
I don't mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same
stratum as herself--that he was fully able to take care of her.
-
tranquil
not agitated
The afternoon had made them
tranquil for a while as if to give them a deep memory for the long parting the next day promised.
-
profoundly
to a great depth psychologically
They had never been closer in their month of love nor communicated more
profoundly one with another than when she brushed silent lips against his coat's shoulder or when he touched the end of her fingers, gently, as though she were asleep.
-
abruptly
quickly and without warning
We talked like that for a while and then
abruptly we weren't talking any longer.
-
melancholy
characterized by or causing or expressing sadness
Just as Daisy's house had always seemed to him more mysterious and gay than other houses so his idea of the city itself, even though she was gone from it, was pervaded with a
melancholy beauty.
-
benediction
a ceremonial prayer invoking divine protection
The track curved and now it was going away from the sun which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in
benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath.
-
interminable
tiresomely long; seemingly without end
Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their
interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old--even then it had always for me a quality of distortion.
-
forlorn
marked by or showing hopelessness
This was a
forlorn hope--he was almost sure that Wilson had no friend: there was not enough of him for his wife.
-
dissolve
come to an end
Standing behind him Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg which had just emerged pale and enormous from the
dissolving night.
-
scarcely
only a very short time before
He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the
scarcely created grass.
-
fortuitous
occurring by happy chance
A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.
-
corrugate
fold into ridges
A small gust of wind that scarcely
corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden.
-
adventitious
associated by chance and not an integral part
Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression "mad man" as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the
adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning.
-
pasquinade
a composition that humorously imitates somebody's style
When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy
pasquinade--but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word.
-
ghastly
shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of
ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendor of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride.
-
reverent
feeling or showing profound respect or veneration
He drew me into his office, remarking in a
reverent voice that it was a sad time for all of us, and offered me a cigar.
-
elocution
an expert manner of speaking involving control of voice
" Practice
elocution, poise and how to attain it 5.00-6.00
-
resentment
a feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will
I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment but he was already too far away and I could only remember, without
resentment, that Daisy hadn't sent a message or a flower.
-
indistinguishable
exactly alike; incapable of being perceived as different
We drew in deep breaths of it as we walked back from dinner through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour before we melted
indistinguishably into it again.
-
provincial
a country person
Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace--or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons--rid of my
provincial squeamishness forever.
As a noun, "provincial" can also mean "an official in charge of an ecclesiastical region" (usually Roman Catholic). Here, Nick is using the word as an adjective to describe his oversensitive or easily disgusted nature, thus giving himself a moral ground that can be contrasted with Tom's careless smashing of the world and Daisy's insincere and scornful declaration: "Sophisticated--God, I'm sophisticated!"
-
raspingly
in a harsh and grating manner
On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight and I erased it, drawing my shoe
raspingly along the stone.
-
pander
yield to; give satisfaction to
Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once
pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
"Pander" is used to describe the actions of trees, so it should not connect to the definition of arranging sexual partners for someone else. But that was hinted at in Nick's role in Gatsby's affair with Daisy. Here, it suggests that the trees the Dutch sailors had first seen in America inspired a wondrous awe of life that could also arise during sex. But as Gatsby discovered, comparing the possibilities for an entire country to one woman will result in disappointment.
-
transitory
lasting a very short time
Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a
transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
-
commensurate
corresponding in size or degree or extent
Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something
commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
-
recede
become faint or more distant
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year
recedes before us.
In using the words "orgastic" and "recede" in the same sentence, Fitzgerald and Nick suggest that the possibilities for the future can be as exciting as sex, but like orgasms, they don't last. And the older we get, the more difficult both would be to embrace and achieve.
-
ceaseless
uninterrupted in time and indefinitely long continuing
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.