The Great Gatsby

1. The Great Gatsby Chapter 7 By: Curtis Needham Kyle Scruggs Ryan Barker

2. Plot Development • Nick learns that Gatsby ended the parties because he no longer needs them to attract Daisy. • Daisy invites Nick, Gatsby, and Jordan, to lunch with her and Tom. • Tom suddenly realizes the affair, and he suddenly agrees that they should all go to the city. • Tom knows about Gatsby’s affair and he insists on driving Gatsby’s car with Nick and Jordan. Gatsby and Daisy travel alone in Tom’s coupe. • Wilson wants to buy Tom’s other car to resell it. He’s trying to raise money to finance moving west, which he has planned for him and his wife Myrtle. Tom is startled at the loss of his mistress.

3. Plot Development (cont.) • Wilson finds out that his wife has been having an affair. • Nick realizes Wilson doesn’t know that Tom is the other man.  • Daisy agrees with Gatsby when he says Daisy never loved Tom and has only loved him. • Tom asks Daisy to think about their past, Daisy admits that she did love Tom in the past, she just loved Gatsby too. • Tom reveals that Gatsby really is involved in organized crime. This terrifies Daisy, who begs that they leave and go home.

4. Plot Development (cont.) • Tom tells her to go back with Gatsby. • Nick describes the car ride as driving toward death. • A car hits Myrtle, who was arguing with Wilson. • Tom suspects that Gatsby hit Myrtle. • Nick sees Gatsby hiding in the bushes of Tom’s house. • Nick learns that Daisy was driving the car and that Gatsby tried to stop the accident. • Gatsby says he’ll take responsibility for it. He’s less interested in what happened to Myrtle.

5. Character Development • Nick Carraway • Takes a back seat through the chapter • As the situation unfolds betweens Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom, Nick seems torn on the situation and doesn’t quite know what to do. He just tries to stay out of it. • “I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.” (135)

6. Character Development • Jay Gatsby • Fires all of his servants so they didn’t find out about his affair. This shows his lack of trust for other people and that he likes to distance himself from society. • Gatsby is afraid to say anything witty in Tom’s house showing he is rather timid. • He seems to be insecure. He bursts out against Tom about how Daisy doesn’t and hasn’t ever loved Tom. • Nick Carraway said “I heard you fired all your servants” (114). In response, Gatsby says, “I wanted somebody who wouldn’t gossip” (114).

7. Character Development • Tom Buchanan • Finds out that Gatsby and Daisy are having an affair and seems very angry. Seeing as he is having an affair with Myrtle, this seems very hypocritical. • Seems to want to be in control of his affair and his married life. • “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 as if he had just recognized her as some one he knew a long time ago” (119). • “Self Control! I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea, count me out…” (130).

8. Character Development • Daisy Buchanan • It’s revealed that she left Gatsby because he was poor, which shows she is very greedy and materialistic. • Continues her affair with Gatsby and confesses her love for him in front of Tom, showing that she is really distant from and strongly disdains Tom. • She is so vengeful in character that she kills Myrtle at the end of the chapter. • “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me” (130).

9. Character Development • Jordan Baker • She continues to gossip, this time about Tom and how he talking to his “lover”. This seems to be the shape of her personality. • “So the rumor is that that’s Tom girl on the phone” (116).

10. Themes • The past should be left in the past. • “I love you now-isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past” (139-40). • People who do the wrong thing are always discovered. • “It passed, and he began to talk excitedly to Daisy, denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made” (142).

11. Symbols • The Yellow Car – symbolizes corruption • Thought the story yellow has displayed corruption; for example, “That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn’t mine-do you hear? I haven't seen it all afternoon” (140). • Alcohol – symbolizes and escape • In this story alcohol is used to escape from problems, “Open the whiskey, Tom,” she ordered” (129).