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Chapters 7-8. Characterization Note throughout the story that Daisy’s voice is her most seductive and distinctive trait: “an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.”
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Chapters 7-8 • Characterization • Note throughout the story that Daisy’s voice is her most seductive and distinctive trait: “an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.” • In this chapter, her voice symbolizes the American Dream, in which wealth is the greatest lure and the key to happiness. Gatsby says, “It’s full of money.” • Her voice is full of promises and memories but has no substance, just like Daisy.
Chapters 7-8 • Plot • Jay insists that Daisy say not only that she does not love Tom but that she never has loved him. • Nick: “I glanced at Daisy, who was staring terrified … (the) presumptuous little flirtation over.” • This is the turning point in the plot. Daisy decides to stay with Tom, who cockily insists that Daisy and Gatsby drive home together. • However, Gatsby clings stubbornly to the now-dead dream that Daisy will leave Tom.
Chapters 7-8 • Self discovery • Nick turns 30: His growing awareness of getting older joins his sobering thought that dreams cannot always be preserved year after year. • But his self-awareness is still limited. If Nick is so honest, will he reveal what he knows about Daisy driving the car?
Chapters 7-8 • Tragic force • The tragic force in literature is the event or force that starts the falling action of a tragedy. • The “death car” took the “tremendous vitality (Myrtle) had stored so long.” • The falling action is set in motion by Myrtle’s death, which acts as the tragic force. • Her death propels Tom into seeking revenge against Gatsby, just as his affair with Myrtle was the exciting force that signaled the start of the conflict in the rising action.
Chapters 7-8 • Characterization • In chapter 8, we see the roots of Gatsby’s obsession with gaining possession of Daisy. • He wants Daisy for her, but she also personifies the luxurious world he longs to belong to.
Chapters 7-8 • “It amazed him – he had never been such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there – it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered.” Jay’s reaction to Daisy’s house. • “The dark street lightened, the dwellings of the rich loomed up around them, he stopped his coupe in front of the great white bulk of the Mortimer Joneses’ house, somnolent, gorgeous, drenched with the splendor of the damp moonlight. Its solidity startled him. The strong walls, the steel of the girders, the breadth and beam and pomp of it were there only to bring out the contrast with the young beauty beside him. It was sturdy to accentuate her slightness – as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly’s wing.” Dexter’s reaction to Judy’s house.
Chapters 7-8 • “They’re a rotten crowd…from beginning to end” (162). Nick has matured to the point where he no longer holds back judgment in deference to his father. • Nick can approve of Gatsby’s fidelity to Gatsby’s dream of Daisy, even though he disapproves of everything Gatsby stands for. • Paradox: Nick’s ability to recognize the complexity of human character lets him recognize good and bad aspects of Gatsby’s character.
Chapters 7-8 • Read the passage on p. 158: “For Daisy was young …blown by the sad horns around the floor.” • This is Fitzgerald at his stylistic best, creating a mood through sensory details: “redolent of orchids,” “the saxophones wailed,” “a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers.” • Simile: “fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals.”
Chapters 7-8 • Self discovery • “I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe … fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.” (169) • Gatsby makes his strongest case for the idea that some illusions or hopes are necessary to sustain the human spirit. • Roses and sunlight are grotesque in reality. Gatsby has little reason to live if he has given up hopes of recapturing Daisy’s love.
Chapters 7-8 • The “ashen, fantastic figure” in the trees? The clue Fitzgerald gives the reader is “ashen.” • George Wilson, who lives and works in the valley of ashes, is on his way – and then the holocaust is complete.
