The Great Gatsby
Chapter Seven
Characterisation - Gatsby
“They’re some people Wolfshiem wanted to do something for” - this again adds doubt in our
minds about Gatsby’s judgement and wisdom.
Wolfshiem is a shady character. What does it suggest about Gatsby that he is prepared to
surround himself by people like this?
It is in this chapter that Gatsby’s fortune is revealed as illegally acquired “I found out what your drug stores were.’ He turned to us and spoke rapidly. ‘He and this
Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain
alcohol over the counter...I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him.”
“He spoke as if Daisy’s reaction was the only thing that mattered”
Again, this conveys another negative aspect to Gatsby’s characterisation. He is only worried
about Daisy and completely ignores the fact that Myrtle was killed
“Of course I’ll say I was” – shows how much he is in love with Daisy. He is prepared to
take the blame for Myrtle’s death
Characterisation – Daisy
This chapter again conveys Daisy’s lack of maternalistic qualities and again reinforces our
impression of her being non-maternal
“The child, relinquished by the nurse, rushed across the room and rooted shyly into her
mother’s dress”
“That’s because your mother wanted to show you off”
“Daisy sat back upon the couch. The nurse took a step forward and held out her
hand....”Good-bye, sweetheart!”
Her daughter’s “reluctant backward glance” suggests she would like to stay with her mother.
However, Daisy simply dismisses her and does not even refer to her by her name. This again
adds to our negative impression of Daisy.
“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly”
Gatsby’s description of Daisy again adds to our negative connotations. This description once
again suggests a materialistic nature and a lack of emotion and spirit.
Daisy’s negative portrayal continues when Gatsby’s past is revealed:
“ With every word she was drawing further and further into herself”
It is further reinforced at the end of the chapter- “I walked away and left him standing there
in the moonlight – watching over nothing”
Daisy has chosen to ignore the fact that Gatsby is prepared to take the blame for Myrtle’s
death and has decided to stay with Tom
Characterisation - Tom
“Your wife does,” exclaimed Tom, startled”.
Tom has just heard that his lover is leaving him. In addition, his wife is having an affair. His
world has crashed around him in one afternoon
Tom Buchanan accuses Gatsby of being a ‘Mr Nobody from Nowhere’. What, do you think,
are the implications of this phrase?
“I’ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to
the back door”
This is a clear example of class distinction. Tom tries to assert his superiority over Gatsby
and emphasises how unsuitable a suitor he is for Daisy
Tom’s hypocrisy shines through in the following quote:
“And what’s more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of
myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time”
This is totally hypocritical of Tom. He has no qualms about his extra marital affairs, but feels
a victim when Daisy’s affair is revealed
Symbolism – Hot weather
“The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest of the summer”
In this chapter, the hot weather reflects the climax of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship
“In this heat every extra gesture was an affront to the common store of life”
The oppressive heat adds to the uncomfortable atmosphere and contributes to what happens
in the chapter – not just Myrtle’s accident, but also the confrontation between Tom and
Gatsby
The fiery and intense sun symbolises Tom’s fiery confrontation with Gatsby
Symbolism - Gatsby in the bushes
“I hadn’t gone twenty yards when I heard my name and Gatsby stepped from between two
bushes into the path”
This signifies the reality of his love for Daisy. She is not concerned about him, but he is still
keeping watch. This makes the reader feel sorry for Gatsby and almost forget his criminal
past
The Car
In a previous chapter, we explored the importance of Gatsby’s car and its symbolism.
However, in this chapter cars are important in terms of Myrtle’s death. Reread the passage
where Myrtle’s body is discovered. How do you think the image of the car has been inverted
from the earlier chapters here? What point about contemporary American society is
Fitzgerald attempting to make with this incident?
Theme: Shallowness of the American Upper Classes
“I’ve heard of making a garage out of a stable,’ Tom was saying to Gatsby, ‘ but I’m the first
man who ever made a stable out of a garage.”
This symbolises his shallowness. The stables will be for his polo ponies as he does not need
to work. Wilson depends on his garage for survival.
Theme : Importance the Past
“You loved me too?” he repeated.
Gatsby’s obsession with having a “blissful past” continue into the present makes him want
Daisy to tell Tom that she never loved him.
However, Tom reminding Daisy of their past, is clever. He is using their personal history to
remind Daisy that she had feelings for him.
BY CONTROLLING THE PAST, TOM ERADICATES GATSBY’S VISION OF THE
FUTURE
Structure/ Style
One of the most important moments in the chapter is when Tom becomes certain of Gatsby
and Daisy’s feelings for each other –
“She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His
mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy”
The climax of the novel occurs with the line, “But with every word she was drawing further
and further into herself”
This is the climax, the most critical part of the novel as it is now clear that Gatsby has lost
Daisy for good
This is reinforced by Tom’s words “I think he realises that his presumptuous little flirtation
is over”
Here, Tom feels secure enough to send Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby. This confirms
Nick’s observation that Gatsby’s dream is dead.
The ending of the chapter with Gatsby hiding in the bushes clearly parallels Gatsby pining for
Daisy at the end of Chapter One.
In Chapter One he was optimistic about their future, but now he has made it past the green
light onto the lawn of Daisy’s house. However, now his dream is gone for ever as Daisy and
Tom have reconciled their differences – “His hand had fallen upon and covered her own”
The Great Gatsby
Chapter Eight
Characterisation - Gatsby
He was attracted to Daisy because of her wealth and privilege and he idolised both wealth
and Daisy – the two are intertwined in his mind.
When he enters her house as a poor soldier, he knows he has no real right to be there.
“I don’t think she ever loved him,’ Gatsby turned around from a window and looked at me
challengingly. ‘You must remember…she was very excited this afternoon.”
Gatsby is not prepared to admit that he has lost Daisy as it is to him like losing his entire
world. He continually refuses to accept that his dream is dead.
Characterisation - Nick
“They’re a rotten crowd…You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’ I’ve always
been glad I said that … because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.”
Nick’s Perception
Nick gives the novel's final appraisal of Gatsby when he asserts that Gatsby is "worth the
whole damn bunch of them." Despite the ambivalence he feels toward Gatsby's criminal past
and nouveau riche affectations, Nick cannot help but admire him for his essential nobility.
Though he disapproved of Gatsby "from beginning to end," Nick is still able to recognize him
as a visionary, a man capable of grand passion and great dreams. He represents an ideal that
has grown exceedingly rare in the 1920s, which Nick (along with Fitzgerald) regards as an
age of cynicism, decadence, and cruelty.
THEME – The American Dream
Gatsby is a symbol for America in the 1920’s. The American Dream has, in the pursuit of
happiness, degenerated into a quest for mere wealth.
Gatsby’s powerful dream of happiness with Daisy has become the motivation for lavish
excess and criminal activities.
Gatsby’s Dream
Nick, in his reflections on Gatsby's life, suggests that Gatsby's great mistake was in loving
Daisy: he thus chose an inferior object upon which to focus his almost mystical capacity for
dreaming. Just as the American Dream itself has degenerated into the crass pursuit of
material wealth, Gatsby, too, strives only for wealth once he has fallen in love with Daisy,
whose trivial, limited imagination can conceive of nothing greater. It is significant that
Gatsby is not murdered for his criminal connections, but rather for his unswerving devotion
to Daisy; it blinds him to all else, even to his own safety. As Nick writes, Gatsby thus "[pays]
a high price for living too long with a single dream."
SYMBOLISM - Weather
“The night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavour in the
air.”
The ‘fire’ has gone out of Gatsby’s life with Daisy’s decision to remain with Tom. This is
symbolised by the cooling weather and autumn slowly creeping in.
SYMBOLISM – The swimming pool
‘I’ve never used that pool all summer?’
In some ways Gatsby is clinging on to the hope that Daisy will love him the way she used to
symbolised by his insistence on swimming in the pool as though it were still summer.
Important – both his downfall in Chapter 7 and his death in this chapter result from his stark
refusal to accept what he cannot control – the passage of time
Gatsby's death takes place on the first day of autumn, when a chill has begun to creep into the
air. His decision to use his pool is in defiance of the change of seasons, and represents yet
another instance of Gatsby's unwillingness to accept the passage of time. The summer is, for
him, equivalent to his reunion with Daisy; the end of the summer heralds the end of their
romance.
Gatsby’s Death
Up to the moment of his death, Gatsby cannot accept that this dream is over: he continues to
insist that Daisy may still come to him, though it is clear to everyone including the reader
that she is bound indissolubly to Tom. Gatsby's death thus seems almost inevitable, given that
a dreamer cannot exist without his dreams; through Daisy's betrayal, he effectively loses his
reason for living.
SYMBOLISM – Eyes of Dr T J Eckleburg
“but you can’t fool God!... Doctor T.J.Eckleburg …God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson.”
George takes this to be the all seeing eyes of God.
He mistakenly believes that Myrtle’s lover must have been her killer and must be punished
by “God”.
BUT remember that these eyes are blind – they are the advert for an opticians.
The connection between these eyes and ‘God’ exists only in Wilson’s grief stricken mind.
Wilson
Wilson seems to be Gatsby's grim double in Chapter VIII, and represents the more menacing
aspects of a capacity for visionary dreaming. Like Gatsby, he fundamentally alters the course
of his life by attaching symbolic significance to something that is, in and of itself,
meaningless; for Gatsby, it is Daisy and her green light, for Wilson, it is the eyes of Dr. T.J.
Eckleburg. Both men are destroyed by their love for women who love the brutal Tom
Buchanan; both are consumed with longing for something greater than themselves. While
Gatsby is a "successful" American dreamer (at least insofar as he has realised his dreams of
wealth), Wilson exemplifies the fate of the failed dreamer, whose poverty has deprived him
of even his ability to hope.
Gatsby’s Death
Gatsby's death takes place on the first day of autumn, when a chill has begun to creep into the
air. His decision to use his pool is in defiance of the change of seasons, and represents yet
another instance of Gatsby's unwillingness to accept the passage of time. The summer is, for
him, equivalent to his reunion with Daisy; the end of the summer heralds the end of their
romance.
THE GREAT GATSBY
CHAPTER 9
CHARACTERISATION - DAISY
“I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without
hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with
them.”
The novel ends with a negative impression of Daisy.
She has simply dealt with everything by forgetting it and moving away.
This is even more shocking when we understand that Gatsby was killed because of her
She has no loyalty to Gatsby again displaying her shallowness.
CHARACTERISATION - NICK
“I found myself on Gatsby’s side, and alone.”
Nick has entered into isolation here
This is a further reflection of his identification with Gatsby
By the end of the novel the reader should understand why Nick thinks Gatsby “turned out all
right at the end”.
In his eyes, Gatsby embodied an ability to dream and escape his past
This dream was possibly (ultimately) impossible
But Nick cherishes and values it nonetheless.
“On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy ... And I erased it.”
Nick is the writer and he wants his words to define Gatsby.
CHARACTERISATION - GATSBY
“Look here, old sport, you’ve got to get somebody for me. You’ve got to try hard. I can’t go
through this alone.”
Gatsby is isolated, not only in death, but even at his own parties where he was a lost and
detached onlooker.
“He took off his glasses and wiped them again, outside and in. ‘The poor son-of-a-bitch,’ he
said”
We feel sympathy for Gatsby too, deserted by acquaintances and (more importantly) Daisy.
CHARACTERISATION – GATSBY’S FATHER
Henry C Gatz is a figure of sympathy rather than admiration
“His eyes leaked continuously”
“He was on the point of collapse”
Nick does not shatter the old man’s illusion of his son
“That’s true”
Gatsby’s father keeps talking about the picture of Gatsby’s house
In a parallel with his son the picture “was more real to him than the house itself”
He is infatuated by an illusion
SETTING – THE MID-WEST
“That’s my Middle West ...”
The Mid-West has been seen to be boring compared to the excitement of the East
But the East is just glittering on the surface
It lacks the moral centre of the Mid-West
This moral depravity dooms the characters in the novel to failure
THEME – SHALLOWNESS OF THE AMERICAN UPPER CLASSES
“What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there.”
Shows lack of morals and the shallowness of the upper classes.
Klipspringer was Gatsby’s lodger but would rather attend a picnic.
He is not even phoning up to offer commiserations but to enquire about a pair of shoes.
“Nobody came”
This illustrates the upper class shallowness.
They attended his parties and abused his hospitality but have deserted him when he is no
longer of any use.
THEME – THE AMERICAN DREAM
Gatsby fails to achieve the American Dream
Some suggestions may be:
He is a criminal
He can never gain acceptance into the American aristocracy.
His new identity is an act
His dream was unattainable (why?)
All of these question the idea of America as a place where all things are possible if one tries
enough.
The American dream is the potential for unlimited advancement, regardless of where
someone comes from or how poor their background is
Gatsby’s failure suggests it is impossible to disown one’s past so completely
SYMBOLISM
He knew he had a big future in front of him. And ever since he made a success he was very
generous with me.”
Ironic – in his father’s mind Gatsby had achieved the American dream
His father has no understanding of the intricacies of American society.
“That’s my Middle West”
Nick thinks of America as a place with distinct regions with different values
Each area has come to symbolise different values
“I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all – Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and
Jordan and I, were all Westerners …”
Throughout history the West has been seen as a land of promise, possibility, a symbol of
American ideals
But Tom and Daisy, like other members of the upper classes have betrayed American ideals
by having a rigid class structure that excludes newcomers from its upper classes.
“Gatsby’s house was still and empty when I left”
The party is over in both the literal and metaphorical sense.
“…grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine.”
Gatsby has gone but time has moved on
This contrasts with Gatsby’s lawn when he was alive
“…and perhaps he made a story about it all of his own.”
Even in death Gatsby remains the focus of gossip and speculation.
“…I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more.”
It is like a sign of material success, but like its owner it is flawed.
“…word, scrawled by some boy”
In the corrupt America of the 1920’s childhood is not even a time of innocence.
“…I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes…”
Nick imagines what it must have looked like to the first explorers
Seeing that America was once a goal for dreamers just as Daisy was for Gatsby.
“Gatsby believed in the green light…”
Nick pictures the green land of America as the green light shining from Daisy’s dock
He believes that Gatsby had failed to realise that his dreams had already ended
His goals had become hollow and empty.
“…tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further … And one fine morning –
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Symbolises that the return to paradise is an ideal not a reality