Quote 1
"I didn't," burst out Kismine. "I never invited one. Jasmine did. And they always had a very good time. She'd give them the nicest presents toward the last. I shall probably have visitors too—I'll harden up to it. We can't let such an inevitable thing as death stand in the way of enjoying life while we have it. Think how lonesome it'd be out here if we never had any one. Why, father and mother have sacrificed some of their best friends just as we have." (8.33)
Again, there seems to be something ritualistic about the Washingtons' way of functioning. In this particular passage, Fitzgerald may be poking fun at religion in his justification of seemingly ridiculous behavior.
Quote 2
[Kismine:] "I'm very innocent and girlish. I never smoke, or drink, or read anything except poetry. I know scarcely any mathematics or chemistry. I dress very simply—in fact, I scarcely dress at all. I think sophisticated is the last thing you can say about me. I believe that girls ought to enjoy their youths in a wholesome way." (5.25)
If John is our glimpse into adolescent boyhood, then Kismine is the female equivalent. What picture does Fitzgerald paint of female adolescence? Is Kismine a fair representation? A caricature?
Quote 3
"Under the stars," [Kismine] repeated. "I never noticed the stars before. I always thought of them as great big diamonds that belonged to some one. Now they frighten me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my youth."
"It was a dream," said John quietly. "Everybody's youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." (11.27-28)
Again it is hinted to us that "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" is as much an allegory of youth as it is of wealth or religion or of America's history. "Chemical madness" is indeed an apt description of the sensory overload John experienced at the Washington estate, which is not dissimilar from the flush of first love.