The Great Gatsby Chapter 8: New Beginnings and Symbolic Endings

1. The Great Gatsby Chapter 8

2. NEW MOOD • Groan of foghorn • Nick’s nightmares • Nick’s new sense of responsibility is evident in his desire to warn G • He commits himself to his friend • G clutches at a last desperate hope that D might still choose him • He excuses her behavior with the explanation that under T’s pressure, she hardly knew what she was saying

3. Flashback • G’s relationship with D 5 years before • Elements that contributed to his dream listed again • Youth and beauty to be inextricably bound up with wealth • Daisy’s porch is “bright with the bought luxury of star-shine” • She “gleams like silver”

4. Quest for a grail • G’s commitment to D is described in these terms • Pursuit of his ideal - religious imagery • Chapter 1 – G is like a worshiper • G’s mind is compared to the Mind of God • Sidewalk stairway to the stars – Jacob’s Ladder • Sacred vigil over D • Knight in pursuit of Holy Grail

5. Quest for a grail, cont. • Imagery suggests the spiritual nature of his quest • Also implies that his faith is misplaced because his goal is nothing more than Daisy • America as a whole – spiritual capacities of the nation are misplaced in the pursuit of material wealth • Result is a national delusion which parallels G’s own

6. Daisy • More sympathetic light in this chapter • She is seen as a weak, overprotected person rather than vicious • She had to have her life shaped by some outside force • Couldn’t wait for G, allowed Tom to overcome her • She does the same 5 years later

7. Gatsby • If Daisy did love Tom, “it was just personal” • Shows the intense, transcendent quality of his vision • Love is more than a personal relationship in this interpretation because is goes beyond the people involved and becomes fused with the ideal • This is why he can keep his dream alive even after Daisy has fled him on a personal level • His incorruptible dream is so strong it can sustain itself in the face of anything

8. Falling leaves • Autumnal atmosphere • Draining the pool • Signals that the end is near • Novel begins with Nick coming east in the spring, climax in the heat of the summer, closes with the falling leaves of autumn • Symbolic background of the seasons, each corresponding to a phase in the culminating episode of his life

9. Nick • G is “worth the whole damn bunch put together” • Indicates that the narrator has developed to the place where he can no longer reserve judgment • Sum of what he has learned in the course of his stay in the east • Total disapproval of G’s vulgarity and self-delusion, yet respects him for the strength and unselfish nature of his idealism

10. Michaelis and George Wilson conversation • Portrait of the state of the ordinary man in the waste land • One of almost total delusion • W. has no religion – lack of spiritual values results in his wasting away to the point where there isn’t even “enough of him for his wife” • W. mistakes the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg for those of God • Kills the wrong man under encouragement of his wife’s lover, ends his own life • Described as ashen, has lost his essential reality by giving up its spiritual element

11. Gatsby’s death • Dies with his faith still alive • Waits for the improbable phone call from Daisy • G’s unshakable faith in his dream has been an affirmation of the richer, more essential part of life, rather than a negation of reality