Chapter Eight
Characterisation
Gatsby, Nick
Theme
American Dream
Symbolism
Characterization - Gatsby
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Why is Gatsby attracted to Daisy?
He was attracted to Daisy because of her
wealth and privilege and he idolized 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
Characterization - Gatsby
Has Gatsby lost or attained Daisy?
 “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.
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Characterization - Gatsby
Discussion: How do you feel about
Gatsby’s inability to accept the truth?
 Is this denial a negative or positive aspect
of his character?
 What does this denial ultimately bring
about?
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Wilson
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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 realized his dreams of wealth),
Wilson exemplifies the fate of the failed dreamer, whose
poverty has deprived him of even his ability to hope
Characterization - 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.”
 Discussion: Is this true? Why does Nick say
this?
 Is Gatsby ‘worth the whole damn bunch put
together’?
 What quality is it that makes him different?
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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.
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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
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THEME – The American Dream
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Task: Consider all of the characters in the
novel. For each one note down how they
symbolize different elements of the
American Dream.
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."
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SYMBOLISM – ‘Grail’
“…but now he found that he had committed
himself to the following of a grail.”
 A Grail is a sacred object of a quest undertaken
by a loyal and devoted knight.
 Gatsby has been transformed into a chivalric
hero – a knight. His shinning armour is his
‘beautiful shirts’, his horse is an expensive car.
 Discussion: Do you think that Gatsby could
rescue Daisy and take her to a better life?
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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 symbolized by the cooling weather and
autumn slowly creeping in.
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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 symbolized 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
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The Swimming Pool
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
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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 inseparably 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
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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”
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SYMBOLISM – Eyes of Dr T J
Eckleburg
BUT remember that these eyes are blind –
they are the advert for an occulist
 The connection between these eyes and
‘God’ exists only in Wilson’s grief stricken
mind
 Discussion – How important has been the
idea of eyes/seeing within the novel?
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SYMBOLISM – The rose
“He must have looked up at an unfamiliar
sky through frightening leaves and
shivered as he found what a grotesque
thing a rose is …”
 The rose has been a symbol of beauty for
centuries, but Nick says that they are not
inherently beautiful and people only view
them as beautiful because they choose to
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SYMBOLISM – The rose
Daisy is grotesque in the same way
 Gatsby has made her beautiful and the
object of his dream but in reality she is an
idle, bored and rich young woman with no
moral strength or loyalties
 Discussion: How does the reader now feel
about Daisy? Consider that she has
abandoned Gatsby in his hour of need
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SYMBOLISM - Holocaust
“…gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way
off in the grass, and the holocaust was
complete”
 Indicates the whole sale destruction of his
Gatsby’s life, of his dream and his love for
Daisy
 Also indicates the destruction of Wilson’s
life, his dream and of his world
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