Chapter 7 wrap up, Chapter 8
The Great Gatsby
Wrapping up Chapter 7
What indications are there at the end of the chapter that Tom and Daisy are going to
stay together despite his philandering and her love for Gatsby?
●
As long as Tom thinks Gatsby murdered Myrtle, Tom will have fewer reasons to be angry with Daisy.
And, sadly, Daisy will be his only ‘option’ at this point for any kind of relationship.
●
When Daisy says, “Isn’t my love enough?...You ask too much!”, this is an indication that Daisy is finally
offput by Gatsby’s naive nature. This is also the height of the climax in their relationship as Daisy is
forced to make a choice.
●
Nick finds Gatsby watching Daisy and Tom from outside their house, standing between two bushes.
What he does not realize is that Tom (although appearing Tom appears to be domanering in the
interaction) and Daisy are reconciling their differences. Also, note the word ‘conspiring’ - what could
this word choice by Fitzgerald mean?
Wrapping up Chapter 7
At the end of the chapter, Gatsby is standing alone, looking out at Daisy’s house.
Where else in the novel does he do this? How is this different?
●
In Chapter 1, Nick’s first glimpse of Gatsby is
when he is staring at the Green light on the
Buchanan’s dock.
●
Now, in Chapter 7, Nick stares into the Buchanan’
s house.
●
Both of these scenes have to do with Gatsby’s
optimism and naivety. Why?
Chapter 8: Facts
1. What does Gatsby tell Nick the night of the accident?
Why?
-
Think about what purpose their late night conversation
served.
2. Did Gatsby want to go to Oxford?
3. How does George Wilson spend the night after the
accident?
4. What evidence had Wilson found that his wife was
having an affair?
Chapter 8: Interpreting Meanings
1. What is the principal reason for Daisy’s appeal to Gatsby?
“She was the first ‘nice girl’ he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had
come into contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed wire in between.”
(148)
“It excited him, too, that many men already loved Daisy - it increased her value in his eyes.”
(149)
“I don’t mean that he traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a
sense of security; he let her believe he was a person from much of the same strata as
herself - “ (149)
“He felt married to her, that was all.” (149)
“Well, there I was, ‘way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every
minute, and all of a sudden I didn’t care.” (150)
Chapter 8: Interpreting Meanings
2. How is Nick’s attitude toward Gatsby ambivalent even at the moment
when he says goodbye to him?
“His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night…”
(147)
“Gatsby turned around from the window and looked at me challengingly.”
(152)
“It was the only compliment I ever game him, because I disapproved of him
from beginning to end.” (154)
“...he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he
waved them goodbye.” (154)
Chapter 8: Interpreting Meanings
3. What do the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg symbolize to George Wilson?
What is significant about this symbol?
“‘’God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool
me, but you can’t fool God!’” (159)
“Michaelis saw with shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg,
which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving light.” (160)
“‘God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson. ‘That’s an advertisement’” (160)
Food for thought: Would T.J. look upon George’s later actions favourably?
Who ‘wins’ in this chapter in terms of a happy ending in this
cautionary tale of the American dream?
Chapter 8: Interpreting Meanings
4. How do you think Wilson got Gatsby’s name? Does any evidence in
this chapter point to a particular person?
“‘I found [the dog collar] yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about it, but I knew it was
something funny’” (158)
“He believed that Mrs. Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop
any particular car.” (159)
“...he ‘had a way of finding out’, supposed he spent that time going from garage to garage
thereabouts, enquiring for a yellow car. On the other hand, no garage man who had seen him ever
came forward, and perhaps he had an easier, surer way of finding out what he wanted to know.”
(160)
“By half past two he was in West Egg, where he asked
someone the way to Gatsby’s house.” (160)
Hint: conspiring from Chapter 7.
Chapter 8: Interpreting Meanings
5. How does Nick imagine Gatsby’s state of mind, as Gatsby waits in his
pool for the phone to ring (pg. 162)?
“I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe [the telephone ring] would
come and perhaps he no longer cared. If it was true he must have felt that
he lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single
dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening
leaves and shivered as he found out what a grotesque thing a rose is and
how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world,
material without being real, where
poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air,
drifted fortuitously about... ”
Compare and Contrast Activity