She was a mischief, and that was a satisfaction; no longer was she a huntress of corralled game
Interpretation
The quote reflects on a woman's playful nature and the joy it brings, suggesting a departure from traditional roles.
F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the essence of a woman's spirited and mischievous character in this quote. It suggests that her playful disposition brings satisfaction and freedom, contrasting her past identity as a 'huntress,' someone who might have hunted for more predictable, constrained experiences. Instead, she embraces mischief, indicating both choice and liberation, reveling in her own nature rather than conforming to societal expectations.
In practice
During a wedding toast, one might use this quote to emphasize the joy and freedom found in love.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
Love opens all doors, no matter how tightly closed they may be, no matter how rusty from lack of use. Your work is to bring unity and harmony, to open all those doors which have been closed for a long time. Have patience and tolerance. Open your heart all the time.
But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old.
My heart born naked was swaddled in lullabies. Later alone it wore poems for clothes. Like a shirt I carried on my back the poetry I had read. So I lived for half a century until wordlessly we met. From my shirt on the back of the chair I learn tonight how many years of learning by heart I waited for you.
What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
I want your sun to reach my raindrops, so your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.
I have always found that actively loving saves one from a morbid preoccupation with the shortcomings of society.
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