The Great Gatsby

The Great 

Gatsby 

by 

F. Scott Fitzgerald 

An A level Workbook 

by 

Julia Geddes 

Wessex Publications

Other workbooks in this series include: 

A level GCSE 

The Miller's Tale I'm the King of the Castle 

The Franklin's Tale The Lord of the Flies 

The Wife of Bath's Tale and Prologue War Poetry 

The Merchant's Tale Macbeth 

The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale An Inspector Calls 

The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales To Kill a Mockingbird 

Much Ado About Nothing Of Mice and Men 

Hamlet Romeo and Juliet 

Measure for Measure Twelfth Night 

King Lear 

The Merchant of Venice 

The Winter’s Tale 

The Poems of John Donne 

The Poetry of Edward Thomas 

Poems of Seamus Heaney 

Mean Time 

The Whitsun Weddings 

High Windows 

Dead Sea Poems 

Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience 

Choice of Christina Rossetti’s Verse 

Three Victorian Poets 

Selected Poems by John Keats 

Wordsworth - Prelude 

Women Romantic Poets 

High Windows 

The World’s Wife 

Selected Poems of John Clare 

Great Expectations 

Jane Eyre 

Mansfield Park 

The Handmaid’s Tale 

Gulliver’s Travels 

Dubliners 

Return of the Native 

Hard Times 

A Passage to India 

Tess of the d’Urbervilles 

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin 

Enduring Love 

Snow Falling on Cedars 

The Great Gatsby 

Spies 

Cold Mountain 

Wise Children 

Possession 

Edward II 

A Doll’s House 

The Rivals 

The Glass Menagerie 

Murmuring Judges 

The Country Wife 

Dr Faustus 

The Duchess of Malfi 

A Street Car Named Desire 

Volpone 

A Woman of No Importance 

All My Sons 

Death of a Salesman 

The School for Scandal 

English Language Topics 

English Critical Appreciation 

Communications - Semiotics and the Media 

English Language Change 

About the Author of this Workbook 

Julia Geddes has taught English Literature to advanced and degree level for a number of years. She 

has a BA honours degree in English and Philosophy and an MA in English Literature from the 

University of Leeds. She has a wide range of teaching experience in secondary, further and higher 

education and is currently a moderator for GCSE English and English Literature and an examiner of 

‘A’ level English Literature. 

COPYRIGHT NOTICE 

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Wessex Publications 

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www.wessexpublications.co.uk 

The contents of this publication remain the copyright property of the publishers. They may be copied 

only within the purchasing institution. Any copying beyond these limits is illegal. 

©Wessex Publications

About the workbook 

The material in this package if fully photocopiable for use within the purchasing 

institution. In addition, you will of course need a copy of the poems. 

Using the materials 

Teacher Guide 

The Great Gatsby 

by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

We recommend that your students should first read the novel once through, either on 

their own or as a group, in order to get a sound grasp of the text. 

The workbook examines the novel and presents students with ideas, questions and 

activities that we hope will lead towards their greater understanding and 

interpretation of Scott Fitzgerald’s work. Sections are included on the period itself 

and themes that recur throughout the novel. Essay and revision questions are also 

provided to help students prepare for the examination. 

It will be necessary to photocopy the workbook for each student. You could give 

each student a guide to keep, but we suggest that you spiral bind or staple them and 

retain them for future use. The answer boxes may, of course, be used but you will 

probably prefer students to answer in their notebooks for reasons of cost. However, 

the size of each box will enable students to gauge how much to write and will make 

it easier to discuss answers with individuals and groups. 

The workbook is written and presented in a similar way to Open University/Open 

College materials and is intended to be interactive and student-centred. The package 

is far more than a revision aid or potted guide. Its purpose is both to support the 

students and to enable them to work at their own pace. The workbook is written for 

the student. It can be used in a variety of ways including: 

• alongside classwork and group work led by the lecturer/teacher/tutor 

• individual supported-self study (flexible learning) work in class 

• individual work carried out at home 

• paired or small group work.

The CD version of the Workbook 

The CD provides you with three versions of the workbook: 

• the complete workbook with questions, answer boxes and author's responses 

• the workbook with tasks and answer boxes only 

• the author's responses only. 

Each of the above may be loaded onto your school/college Intranet or printed off 

separately. This will give you complete flexibility to use the materials as you see fit. 

The lecturer’s/teacher’s role 

The pack is not intended as a substitute for the teacher/lecturer. In our view it is 

essential that she/he support the student throughout by providing: 

• an introduction to the text 

• explanation when needed 

• guidance and support, individually and within small groups 

• regular checks of the student’s work. 

Note 

Tasks are written using Times New Roman font, and the author's suggested 

comments/answers/responses to them are given in a different font (Arial) to enable 

students to pick them out more easily.

The Great 

Gatsby 

by 

F. Scott Fitzgerald 

An A level Workbook 

by 

Julia Geddes 

Wessex Publications

CONTENTS 

Using the Workbook ...................................................................................1 

The Great Gatsby – Background ...............................................................2 

• Notes on the author ..................................................................................2 

• The Jazz Age ............................................................................................4 

• The Mid West ..........................................................................................4 

• The American Dream ...............................................................................4 

• Parallels between the Fitzgeralds’ life and The Great Gatsby………….5 

• Towards an interpretation of The Great Gatsby ......................................5 

• Structure of the novel ...............................................................................5 

• Style and the novel ...................................................................................6 

Brief Chapter Notes ....................................................................................7 

Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................9 

Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................21 

Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................29 

Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................37 

Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................45 

Chapter 6 ........................................................................................................52 

Chapter 7 ........................................................................................................57 

Chapter 8 ........................................................................................................66 

Chapter 9 ........................................................................................................74 

Themes ..........................................................................................................82 

East v West ....................................................................................................82 

Gatsby’s Dream .............................................................................................82 

The Great Gatsby as a critique of the American Dream ................................83 

The Great Gatsby as a critique of US Society ...............................................84 

Time ...............................................................................................................85 

Use of Imagery..............................................................................................87 

Lightness and darkness ..................................................................................87 

Religion ..........................................................................................................87 

Colour ............................................................................................................88 

Eyes ................................................................................................................88 

Exam Questions with suggested plans .........................................................90 

Further exam questions and practice ..........................................................92

The Great Gatsby Using the Workbook 

Using the Workbook 

The workbook examines various aspects of The Great Gatsby and 

you will be asked to complete tasks on each of these areas as you 

progress through the different sections. All the tasks are designed to 

help you look carefully at the novel and to come to an appreciation of 

its meaning and significance as a piece of literature. In addition to 

work in the workbook itself it is advisable to keep your own, fuller 

notes, in a notebook or ring binder. These will be an important revision 

aid if you are going to answer on this text in an examination. 

Some of the tasks require quite short answers and where this is the case 

a box is provided in the workbook where you can write down your 

responses if you wish. 

Where you see this notebook symbol, a fuller response is required and 

it would be best if you wrote your comments or answers in your own 

notebook or file. 

At the end of the workbook you will find a number of specimen essay 

questions of the kind that you might find set for A-Level English 

Literature (or an examination of similar standard). These titles and 

questions would also be suitable for coursework assignments on this 

text. If you are going to answer on this text in an examination it would 

be very useful for you to practise writing answers to several of these 

and have some idea of how you would tackle any of them. 

Good luck and happy studying. 

The text: 

www.wessexpublications.co.uk - 1 - 

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Penguin Popular Classics)

The Great Gatsby Notes on the Author 

Notes on the Author 

There are numerous websites available, which provide detailed 

information about Scott Fitzgerald and his life, such as: 

• http://www.fitzgeraldsociety.org 

• http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/ 

A very brief summary is given below: 

Born: St. Paul, Minnesota, September 24, 1896 

Family: His father, Edward, was from Maryland, and his mother, Mary 

(Mollie) McQuillan, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant. Both were 

Catholics. Father failed in business but the family became reasonably 

well off when Mollie received an inheritance. 

Education: Attended St Paul Academy followed by The Newman School in New 

Jersey. Started degree course at Princeton University but his ambition 

to become a writer led him to neglect his studies. In 1917, he joined the 

army and never completed his degree. World War I ended just before 

he was due to leave for Europe so he never saw active service. 

Personal Life: His first love was the daughter of a wealthy Chicago family, Ginevra 

King. Her family disapproved of Fitzgerald so she married the most 

eligible bachelor in Chicago. In 1918, he fell in love with Zelda Sayre, 

18-year old daughter of a Supreme Court judge. His lack of money and 

poor prospects led her to break off their engagement. 

After the publication of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920, 

he became famous almost overnight and, one week after the book was 

published, married Zelda in New York. They had a lavish and 

extravagant married life, mixing with the rich and famous. In 1921, 

they moved back to St. Paul where Zelda gave birth to their only child 

(a daughter, Frances) in October. 

Following the failure of his play, The Vegetable, he started to drink 

heavily, as did Zelda, and their drinking bouts were often followed by 

stormy rows. 

From the mid-1920s to the late 1930s, the Fitzgeralds split their time 

between Europe (France and Italy) and the United States. 

In 1930, Zelda had a breakdown. She recovered from it but suffered a 

relapse in 1932 and spent the rest of her life in and out of psychiatric 

hospitals until 1948 when she died in a fire in Highland Hospital in 

Asheville, North Carolina. 


F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)


Fitzgerald continued to write throughout the 1930s but his novels were 

not very successful during his lifetime. Most of his income came from 

the large number of short stories he wrote. He continued to drink 

heavily and died of a heart attack on 21 December 1940, considering 

himself to have been a failure. 

In the late 1940s, there was a surge of interest in his work and, by 

1960, he was established as one of the leading American writers. 

Chronology of major works: 

1920 This Side of Paradise 

1922 The Beautiful and Damned 

1922 Tales of the Jazz Age (Short Stories) 

1925 The Great Gatsby 

1934 Tender is the Night 

1941 The Last Tycoon (published posthumously) 

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The Jazz Age 


The Great Gatsby - Background 

• A reaction to the recent suffering experienced 

during the First World War? 

• Tales of the Jazz Age are riddled with cheating 

and corruption. 

Consider: 

- Gatsby’s bootlegging 

- Wolfshiem’s fixing of the World Series 

- Jordan Baker’s pointless cheating at golf 

• The experience of the war could be seen to have matured a 

generation of writers who now saw the US in a wider perspective 

(e.g. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway) and saw beyond its 

own (narrow?) concerns 

The Mid West 

• Seen in The Great Gatsby as the embodiment of old-fashioned 

stability. 

• The difference between the East Coast and the Midwest is 

highlighted constantly. 

• It is the materialistic concerns of the East that finally breaks Gatsby 

who is, after all, a child of the Midwest. 

The American Dream 

• See John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of 

Wrath & J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the 

Rye. 

• The USA was the embodiment of the land 

of opportunities. 

• It abounded with possibilities for material advancement. 

• There were also possibilities for spiritual enlightenment, as 

embodied by religious groups such as the Quakers and the Puritan 

Fathers.



• Instead of pursuing spiritual goals, material goals seemed to take 

over and, in mainstream culture, spiritual ones were abandoned. 

Parallels between the Fitzgeralds’ own life and The 

Great Gatsby 

• Gatsby’s loss of Daisy and his return to her life later are 

significantly similar to the patterns of Fitzgerald’s own experience 

with Ginevra and Zelda. 

• The Great Gatsby describes the American idealistic outlook on 

life; the belief in the individual’s right to a fulfilling life and 

spiritual happiness, as opposed to the American interest in material 

advancement and possessions. 

• The Great Gatsby is concerned with youth and the importance of 

youth. This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned 

reflect the idea of youthful dreams being checked by reality and the 

sense that reality cannot measure up to those ideals and dreams. 

• Fitzgerald’s rationality and cold views towards the rich are voiced 

in the narrator, Nick Carraway. The Great Gatsby draws attention 

to the fragility of America’s clinging to material possessions 

through Gatsby’s (desperate?) sad but extravagant lifestyle and his 

admiration and mimicry of the lives of the rich. 

Towards an interpretation of The Great Gatsby 

• A Love Story? 

- Consider the informality of its style. 

- The superficially simple plot (although to be fooled by this is 

surely to miss the point of the text…). 

• Social Satire? 

- It comments upon and criticises the gaiety and extravagance of 

the period. 

- Consider the struggles between classes and against class 

division suggested by the plot (especially embodied in the 

persona of Myrtle). 

Structure of the novel 

• Relates to the theme, i.e. the opposing attitudes of two groups of 

people: Buchanan v. Gatsby. The structure alternates in its focus 

between these two opposing groups.



• Chapters 1 to 4 juxtapose these 2 sets of characters, thus 

emphasising the contrasts and similarities between them. 

• Chapters 5 to 9 see the action steadily advancing and building 

towards a climax. 

Style and the novel 

• Juxtaposition 

- The fantastical with the real. 

- Physical with material images. 

• Comedy/humour 

- Can enhance the tragedy. 

- Provides relief. 

- See the character of Myrtle (ridiculous or sad?). 

- See Daisy and Gatsby’s first meeting. 

• Irony 

- Especially in Fitzgerald’s use of language. 

- In the description of Gatsby’s house. 

- The comic potential of the irony (Daisy & Gatsby’s meeting 

contrasting with the tragedy to come). 

• Pace 

- The racy, fast-moving quality of the narrative is noticeable. 

- Consider especially the party in Chapter 3.

The Great Gatsby Brief Chapter Notes 

Brief Chapter Notes 

Chapter 1 


• Introduces Nick. 

• Nick visits the Buchanans. 

• He returns to see Gatsby searching for the elusive green light. 

• Thus both sets of characters are revealed and Nick is also 

described. 

Chapter 2 

• The Valley of Ashes. 

• Back to Daisy and Tom’s world. 

• Nick meets Myrtle: an introduction to the lower middle class. 

They are just as shallow and affected as the upper class. 

Chapter 3 

• Gatsby’s party. Although it seems like a display of hedonism it 

is at least a means to an end – that end being Daisy. 

• Gatsby stands apart, getting ‘more correct as the fraternal 

hilarity increased.’ Notice here the dignity and idealism of his 

dream being represented by the author. 

• Theme of mistaken identity: at first, Nick does not realise who 

Gatsby is; T.J.Eckleberg; Owl Eyes accused (wrongly) of 

driving the car that ends up in the ditch. 

Chapter 4 

• List of visitors to Gatsby’s. Their stupid names emphasise their 

inconsequentiality. 

• Drive to the town. Gatsby’s meeting with Wolfsheim. 

• Contrast of characters: Gatsby gambles everything for love; 

Wolfsheim gambles for money. 

• Mistaken identity – Nick as a business connection. 

Chapter 5 

• Climax of book so far: Daisy meets Gatsby. Subplot and plot 

intertwine. 

• Gatsby’s display of wealth. Is it a response to Daisy’s 

materialistic values or just Gatsby’s interpretation of these? 

• Gatsby’s house is lit up, representing his anticipation of 

meeting Daisy again.

The Great Gatsby Brief Chapter Notes 

Chapter 6 


• Gatsby’s ‘self-creation’ from James Gatz to Gatsby. 

• Tom and Mr and Mrs Sloane visit. 

• Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties. 

Chapter 7 

• The climax of the action of the text. 

• Note how both worlds are brought together. 

• Nick, Jordan, Daisy, Gatsby and Tom go to the Buchanan’s for 

lunch. 

• This develops into an afternoon of drinking at the Plaza Suite. 

• Climax comes as Daisy is unable to meet Gatsby’s demands 

and fails him, although Tom does feel ‘the hot whips of panic’. 

• In the ensuing car crash, Myrtle is killed by Daisy. 

• Gatsby waits outside Tom & Daisy’s house. 

• Tom and Daisy pull together for survival at the expense of 

Gatsby. 

Chapter 8 

• Recalls Gatsby’s past: his ‘quest’. 

• Wilson (Myrtle’s husband) goes to Tom’s in search of answers. 

He then goes to Gatsby’s. Gatsby is murdered. 

Chapter 9 

• Nick arranges the funeral. 

• Mr Gatz is introduced. 

• Nobody comes to the funeral but Owl Eyes, whose rubbing of 

his eyes at the graveside represents Gatsby’s faulty vision. 

• Nick visits Tom to ask him what he said to Wilson ‘that 

afternoon’. 

• The Dream (The American Dream?) is shattered.

The Great Gatsby Chapter One 

TASK 1 

Which of his characteristics does Nick reveal in the first few pages? 

You might like to consider the following points: 

• The extent to which these characteristics shape what Nick tells 

us, what he omits and the interpretations he places on events 

and conversations. 

• The extent to which these interpretations are Fitzgerald’s own. 

As a narrator, is Nick intended to be omniscient/ intrusive/ 

unreliable? How restricted is the narrative? 

Nick shares with the reader the following insights about his younger 

self: 

• He is “vulnerable”. 

• He is close to his father. 

• He is ‘inclined to reserve all judgements’. 

• He is a target for people – including ‘veteran bores’ and 

‘abnormal minds’ - who want to confess their secrets to him. 

(He assures us that ‘most of the confidences were unsought’, 

especially since they are frequently unoriginal or biased though 

he also owns up to being ‘a little afraid of missing something’). 

• He sees himself as ”normal” but privileged – not in 

conventional terms but in possessing ‘a sense of the 

fundamental decencies’ as an accident of birth. 

So the reader is alerted from the outset that Nick will hope for the best 

and be prey to the confidences of strange and maybe immoral people 

- and that he may suffer as a result. 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter One


TASK 2 

How does Fitzgerald further engage the reader’s sympathy for Nick? 

Here are some of my ideas to add to your own: 

Nick discloses that he is tolerant but sincere enough to admit that his 

tolerance ‘has a limit’. At the beginning of the story, Nick, as character 

if not as narrator, is presented as having lost patience with the frailties 

of his fellows. He has come back from the War with little patience for 

‘riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.’ 

However, intriguingly, one person is ‘exempt from my reaction’ – 

paradoxically a man who ‘represented everything for which I have an 

unaffected scorn’. We can only assume (increasingly, as we 

encounter so many frankly unlikeable characters in the book) that Nick 

himself, tolerant though he claims to be, actually envies or at least 

aspires to the qualities which mark Gatsby out - ‘. . . something 

gorgeous . . . some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life . . . 

an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness . . .’ 

For Nick, it seems, is jaded not only by his experiences in the War but 

by the fate which has befallen Gatsby: ‘. . . it is what preyed on 

Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that 

temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded 

elations of men.’ 



TASK 3 

TASK 4 

How does Fitzgerald challenge the reader? 

At this point, Fitzgerald is risking losing the reader – too many hints 

and vague reflections and not enough hard facts (Gatsby does not 

actually speak in the book until halfway through Chapter Three, by 

which time a very inconsistent picture of him has been built up. Maybe 

the character never really comes into full focus). 

Consider the effect of the change in narrative mode. 

Abruptly, Fitzgerald moves into more conventional narrative mode, 

sketching in Nick’s antecedents. He is as typical a young, respectable, 

middle-class American male as is useful for a narrator (one who is not 

going to divert the story with his own complications) to be. He looks 

like the pragmatic ancestor. Unsettled by his War experiences, Nick 

leaves the Mid-West unaware that he is going to prove to possess 

‘some deficiency’, which tends to make Westerners ‘subtly 

inadaptable to Eastern life’. His family express qualified agreement. 

Nick is moving from a secure and tried background with its 

comfortable ‘wide lawns and friendly trees’ to a lonely, isolated life. A 



TASK 5 

TASK 6 

visitor asks the way and Nick can excitedly oblige: ‘I was a guide . . . 

He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood.’ 

The images of West Egg become more positive: ‘life was beginning 

over again with the summer’ and his plans are many and ‘shining’ 

although there is an element of wishful thinking evident too: ‘just as 

things grow in fast movies’ 

Read the description of the eggs. What do you feel is their 

significance? 

Nick’s house is on one of the ‘Eggs’ in ‘that slender, riotous island’; a 

wonderful juxtaposing of adjectives here emphasises that the story will 

contain both chaos and intensity and suggests that the story will make 

much of comparisons, of the like contexts which are also so unlike. 

Fitzgerald tells us that the contrast between the ‘Eggs’ is ‘bizarre and 

not a little sinister’ but does not unpack this idea yet. On West Egg, 

Gatsby’s mock Hotel de Ville is all façade and conspicuous riches. 

The fashionable side ‘glittered’ and boasted ‘palaces’, displaying more 

authentic classiness. 

How does Fitzgerald introduce the reader to Tom? 


continue over


Tom Buchanan is the first character apart from the narrator to be 

introduced in full. Fitzgerald starts with Tom’s most cherished 

characteristic, his unusual physical prowess, but quickly warns us that 

this is merely ‘an acute limited excellence’ reached so early that 

‘everything afterward savours of anti-climax’ – an important key to 

Tom’s behaviour. It transpires that Tom will go on looking for ‘the 

dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.’ His wealth 

is outlined in well-chosen detail but the reader is reminded that ‘even 

in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach’, which 

indicates that a moral standpoint is going to be taken on Tom’s use of 

his fortune. 

Tom and his wife, Daisy (Nick’s ‘second cousin once removed’, a 

connection which appears close enough for Nick to be expected at 

Daisy’s wedding), are initially described as ‘drifting . . . unrestful’, living 

an aimless life with ‘other people who played polo and were rich 

together’. They are also summarised by Nick as ‘two old friends whom 

I scarcely knew at all.’ We learn about them as Nick does. 

Tom’s very stance, outside his ‘elaborate” house betrays much about 

his character. His appearance is not recounted very sympathetically: 

‘sturdy straw-haired . . . hard . . . supercilious . . . arrogant . . . leaning 

aggressively . . .’, immensely powerful under his ‘effeminate’ clothes. 

Even his body is ‘cruel’. He will prove to be the sort of person who will 

take what he wants by sheer force. He is ‘fractious’ and contemptuous 

– a dangerous combination. However, Fitzgerald points out his 

‘wistfulness’ twice in two pages, here to indicate that Tom wants Nick 

to like him, a consideration that will affect the outcome of the plot. 



TASK 7 

TASK 8 

What do you feel is the significance of the description of the 

Buchanans’ drawing room? 

The Buchanans’ drawing room is a fantasy place, ‘rosy-coloured’ with 

a ‘frosted wedding-cake of [a] ceiling’, the wind blowing through it so 

that the two women on the sofa are ‘buoyed up as though upon an 

anchored balloon’. In their ‘rippling, fluttering’ white dresses, the two 

seem innocent and fragile. The notions of restlessness and drifting are 

again indicated. Tom substantiates his dominance by bringing the 

women literally down to earth. 


Make notes on the way Jordan Baker is introduced. 

Jordan Baker is introduced in a strange way by the man who may 

almost fall in love with her as the book progresses. The raised chin 

suggests a precarious hold on life, an idea that is belied by her selfcontainment. 

Daisy looks ‘conscientious’ but is charmingly gay, eager 

to hijack her cousin with tacit and flattering intimacy. Her 

idiosyncrasies clearly win Nick over. He defends criticism of her as 

‘irrelevant’.


TASK 9 

TASK 10 

How does Nick react to the women at this point in the novel? 

Nick is at something of a loss – one woman is so charming, the other 

so self-sufficient, though he is quick to mock Jordan’s little trick. 

Before he can explore Daisy more, he must begin to describe to us 

the all-important voice, which is even more unforgettable and thrilling 

than her bright, sad, lovely face and ‘bright passionate mouth’. Hers is 

a voice which holds ‘a singing compulsion, a whispered ‘Listen’, a 

promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and 

that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.’ He 

seems in thrall to her, playing along at her “ecstasy” that 

acquaintances have missed her. The ‘baby’ (she is three) is 

mentioned but we do not meet her for several chapters. Restless 

again, Tom interrupts to put down Nick’s choice of occupation. 

How do we respond to the mood and emotions of the characters as they 

are presented in these opening scenes? 


continue over


There is a sense of lives lived to no purpose other than to be gay, 

urbane, languid, a little querulous. Nick feels a measure of attraction 

to Jordan, despite her ‘wan . . . discontented face’. Maybe her military 

bearing appeals to his craving for order and discipline. 

Fitzgerald stresses Tom’s need to control with a splendid simile: 

‘compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to 

another square.’ While Jordan’s responses are characterised by the 

semantic field of sleep, Daisy is again pointlessly radiant. Her 

underlying tragedy is not yet obvious and we may react to her shallow 

comment ‘What do people plan?’, with exasperation. However the 

exchange between Tom and herself which follows is more disturbing. 

Though they both adopt childish terms and gestures, the evidence 

hints at a more serious scenario. 

‘Bantering inconsequence’ perfectly describes the ‘chatter’ of the two 

girls; their eyes are ‘impersonal’; they feel no ‘desire’, almost 

disregarding Tom and Nick. They are too cool for the Mid-West, where 

lives are lived more passionately: ‘an evening was hurried from phase 

to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or 

else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself’. In comparison, Nick 

feels ‘uncivilized’. 

Unsurprisingly, Tom reveals himself as possessing fascist tendencies, 

as a basically unintelligent man shaken from his ‘complacency’ and 

dwelling rather ludicrously on the ‘scientific stuff’ which has ‘proved’ 

the theories he quotes, desperately concentrating as he tries to make 

his case. Daisy, who is much sharper, seizes the opportunity to mock 

him (‘He reads deep books with long words in them’) while not 

bothering to dispute his points. 



TASK 11 

How would you describe Nick’s relationship with Daisy at this point? 

In Tom’s absence Nick and Daisy almost flirt, Nick gently joking with 

her and Daisy proffering grandiose compliments (‘a rose’). He does 

seem smitten, detailing how ‘the last sunshine fell with romantic 

affection upon her glowing face . . . each light deserting her with 

lingering regret . . . a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart 

was trying to come out to you . . . ’. There is definitely a reserving of 

judgements here. 

The telephone rings and with a ‘short glance consciously devoid of 

meaning’, he and Jordan begin to enter into a tacit conspiracy to 

protect Daisy. How do we now view Daisy’s relationship with Tom? 

Consider Nick’s response to this situation. Is he really as tolerant as 

he has suggested? 



TASK 12 

As Jordan shushes him so that she can shamelessly eavesdrop, some 

sympathy for Daisy is forged. Tom has a girlfriend who has no 

scruples about ringing him at home while he is at his own dinner table. 

Daisy’s ‘gaiety’ is revealed, as the mask for “tension” and her plight is 

made more poignant by her desperate need to conjure “romance” 

even on her front lawn. Tom, described as “miserable”, dodges 

Daisy’s barbs by making a typically gross suggestion, that he take 

Nick to view his stables but the ‘shrill metallic urgency’ (an unpleasant 

representation which underscores the narrator’s disapproval) of the 

telephone reduces the company to ‘broken fragments’. 

The mood is loaded with embarrassment (‘I was conscious of wanting 

to look squarely at everyone and yet to avoid all eyes’). Even if more 

temperamentally like Jordan ‘who seemed to have mastered a certain 

hardy scepticism’, we are drawn into Nick’s discomfort: ‘my own 

instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.’ Is he really 

tolerant? 

How does Nick respond to the complexity of the situation? How do we 

respond to the presentation of Daisy? 

Nick aims ‘to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf’ though he 

cannot fail to pick up Daisy’s ‘turbulent emotions’. Trying to be tactful, 

he is reduced to asking “feeble” questions about her daughter who, 

significantly, appears very little in the story. Daisy even uses his polite 

enquiries as an excuse to make the story about herself. In her hopes 

for the little girl – that ‘she’ll be . . . a beautiful little fool’ – Daisy is 

actually bemoaning her own situation. Or is she? Is her abandonment, 

her cynical stance, and her scorn at her own sophistication all 

genuine? Or is the ‘absolute smirk’ more indicative of the truth? Nick 

frets that there is a ‘basic insincerity’ in her words (though while she is 

talking, in the “compelling” voice, he goes along with them), that he 

has been “tricked” into feeling ‘a contributory emotion’ and that, 



TASK 13 

TASK 14 

tellingly; Daisy and Tom have duped him together. He senses ‘a rather 

distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged’, an 

impression that is, of course, sadly confirmed by the end of the novel. 

How does Fitzgerald engender Nick’s growing interest in Jordan? How 

is Jordan linked with Daisy? 

The evening is ‘soothing’ and Fitzgerald signals a possible sexual 

interest for Nick as he watches Jordan’s ‘flutter of slender muscles’ 

and ‘pleasing contemptuous expression’ while Daisy, once again in 

bantering mode, teases Nick that she will ‘sort of – oh – fling you 

together’. No sentimentalist, Fitzgerald builds in a ‘critical, unpleasant 

story’ to assure us that Jordan is probably as flawed as her hostess. 

Unsurprisingly, Tom reveals his patriarchal views when she has gone 

to bed: ‘They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.’ 

These will surface in unexpected ways at later points in the book. 

As this first encounter with the Buchanans comes to a close, how does 

Fitzgerald present Nick’s feelings and what are we expected to 

understand about Tom and his relationship with his wife? 



TASK 15 

Daisy’s shot about ‘home influence’ alerts Tom to the likelihood that 

she has given Nick ‘a little heart to heart talk’ and he is anxious that 

Nick should not take her side: ‘Don’t believe everything you hear’. Nick 

leaves as, in a slightly sinister way, they turn into complacent happilymarrieds 

while quizzing him on his love life – which, maybe 

disturbingly, hints that he may be something of a love-rat. 

In summing up this first important episode, Nick admits to being 

‘confused and a little disgusted’. Because Daisy is going to stay with 

Tom rather than ‘rush out of the house, child in arms’, he decides; and 

because Tom’s ‘sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his 

peremptory heart’. We have been warned: Tom is dangerous, perhaps 

particularly so because he does not possess the intellectual rigour to 

do more than ‘nibble at the edge of stale ideas’. 

The chapter concludes with Nick’s first sighting of Gatsby. Make notes 

on the way Fitzgerald presents this moment and his use of pathetic 

fallacy to echo the mood of his characters. 

The night is described as ‘loud, bright’ and Nick is now restless too, 

sitting on his lawn and drinking in his surroundings. Here and 

elsewhere, Fitzgerald uses the weather and other natural phenomena 

to echo the moods of his characters. And at last we glimpse a ‘figure’ 

who is possibly the enigmatic Mr Gatsby, ‘come out to determine what 

share was his of our local heavens’. Already he seems to be a man 

who has boundless aspirations and who is quite ‘secure’ about holding 

them. But then, oddly, he ‘stretched out his arms towards the dark 

water’ and Nick ‘could have sworn that he was trembling’. What is the 

significance of the ‘single green light’, soon to be unveiled as such an 

‘enchanted object’? 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Two 

TASK 16 

This chapter opens with a completely contrasting scene (as does 

Chapter Three, which introduces us to another of the main settings of 

the story). It is a tribute to the sympathy Fitzgerald has awakened in us, 

principally for his narrator, Nick, that we are prepared to persevere 

with it. The characters here seem deeply charmless even when viewed 

through sober eyes; and Nick admits that his perceptions are distorted 

by alcohol as the evening progresses. Perhaps Fitzgerald had a failure 

of nerve here and could not bear to prolong his account. But the search 

for romance – or maybe simply the elegant wisdoms and the striking 

juxtapositions – compel not just Nick and his creator but us too to 

suspend our distaste. 

Consider how Fitzgerald impresses on the reader the shabby, tawdry 

world of the idle, restless rich. 

Fitzgerald describes this setting as ‘desolate . . . a valley of ashes . . . 

grotesque . . . dismal . . . waste land’, a setting where the road itself 

“shrinks away” and which is peopled by ‘ash-grey men, who move 

dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air’. The ashes 

themselves seem to ‘grow’. Even the cars are ‘grey’, the river ‘small 

foul’. The eyes on the hoarding make a truly disturbing image, one 

which is revisited with savage irony later in the book. But even these 

are doomed to be ‘dimmed a little by many pointless days . . . [to] 

brood on over the solemn dumping ground’. 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Two


TASK 17 

Make notes on the way Tom introduces Nick to “his girl” and the 

importance of Fitzgerald’s use of colour in this passage. 

In this wilderness, Tom leaps out of the train and says, as though this 

were a perfectly normal remark: ‘I want you to meet my girl’. The 

juxtaposition between this incongruity and the ‘ghastly’ scene invite 

many speculations. Being Tom, of course, he is handling the whole 

situation with little finesse, abandoning her to his acquaintances in 

public so that they “resent” the false position in which he puts them. 

Though Tom is described with his customary adjective ‘supercilious’, 

his behaviour is exaggerated by quantities of alcohol (we are already 

aware that conscienceless drinking will have a part to play in the 

story). His need to control ‘bordered on violence’. 

Aware of the scrutiny of Dr Eckleburg’s eyes (standing in for God 

here?), Nick is taken to a yellow house. (Note the ways in which 

Fitzgerald uses this colour for both positive and negative – gold, 

Tom’s straw-coloured hair, whisky, and the yellow of the car, which 

becomes the murder weapon, the Wilsons’ house.) 



TASK 18 

TASK 19 

Make notes on the description of Wilson’s garage and the man himself. 

How are the two interchangeable? 

The Wilsons’ garage is as unpromising as its environs: it is 

‘contiguous to absolutely nothing . . . The interior was unprosperous 

and bare’, the car inside is ‘dust-covered . . . in a dim corner’ and 

‘sumptuous and romantic apartments’ are not ‘concealed overhead’. 

Wilson is ‘blond, spiritless . . . anaemic’, his handsomeness is “faint”, 

in keeping with the surroundings; even his wife regards him as a 

‘ghost’. Maybe Fitzgerald is overdoing his point here! He speaks in 

clichés, which don’t even convince him. 

Consider Tom’s behaviour and mood as he relates to both Wilson and 

his wife, Tom’s girlfriend. 



TASK 20 

Tom is “jovial” to begin with, slapping Wilson on the shoulder in a 

characteristically insensitive way but soon tires of this, coldly 

responding to Wilson’s complaints and glancing ‘impatiently around’. 

The girlfriend is rather surprising since she would not appear to rival 

Daisy’s beauty and style (though is this the point?). She clearly 

possesses a coarse, overblown and rather synthetic attractiveness, 

which Tom requires: ‘she carried her flesh sensuously . . . there was 

an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her 

body were continually smouldering.’ That Tom should be attracted to 

such a woman reinforces our sense that he is limited and unrefined. 

She makes no pretence of tenderness towards her husband or 

elegance in conversation, for example, when she and Tom organise 

their rendezvous with a graceless urgency. Afterwards Tom seems to 

feel that he should excuse his behaviour – which he does with the 

ridiculous ‘It does her good to get away’ as though it is her ‘dumb’ 

husband’s fault that she is straying. Despite his distaste, Nick is 

curious enough to prompt him with questions. 

Make notes on Myrtle’s behaviour once she has left the garage and 

consider what it is that characterises her relationship with Tom. 

Intriguingly, Myrtle Wilson puts on more and more airs the further she 

gets into New York. The nature of her relationship with Tom is 

characterised by Fitzgerald in terms of her consumption - she is not 

out of the station before she has made four purchases – and rather 

pathetic attempts to play the grande dame. She dismisses ‘four 

taxicabs . . . before she selected a new one’ and insists on a dog: ‘I 

want to get one for the apartment.’ She displays a childlike and 

childish excitement about the unprepossessing animal Tom does buy 

for her – Fitzgerald uses terms such as ‘earnestly . . . eagerly . . . 

enthusiastically . . . rapture’ to describe her. 



TASK 21 

On their arrival in New York, Tom and Myrtle organise an impromptu 

party. Make notes on the way this is presented, on Nick’s response and 

on what we learn of the relationship between Tom and Myrtle. 

Nick seems bemused by now, his imagination creating an ‘almost 

pastoral’ scene of the city centre: ‘I wouldn’t have been surprised to 

see a great flock of white sheep turn the corner.’ Though he is keen to 

get away, he is powerless before Tom’s blunt ‘No, you don’t.’ Tom has 

been taking charge throughout, even to pronouncing on the gender of 

the dog. Myrtle is now “regal” and “haughty” as she makes plans to 

have her elevated status admired by her friends and acquaintances. 

Ironically her speech becomes more and more colloquial. Inevitably, 

the apartment is cramped and pretentious – the tapestry prints of 

Versailles on the furniture are tellingly juxtaposed with the scandal 

rags. The dog is fussed over and, of course, more whisky fuels the 

party. 

Nick is desperate enough to forego his usual qualms about getting 

drunk (is he just too careful to indulge?) which adds to the ‘distorted’ 

view of the proceedings he gives us. Beginning with the inglorious 

haste with which Tom and Myrtle disappear to have sex, the whole 

afternoon becomes more vague (even Catherine’s eyebrows” give a 

blurred air to her face”), almost nightmarish at times. Normal 

conventions, such as the easy familiarity into which Nick and Myrtle 

fall, disappear while all the guests seem to be striking poses of one 

sort or another or crudely staking their territories. Nick is not too drunk 

to lose his customary fastidiousness – ‘there was a white spot of lather 

in his cheekbone’. 



TASK 22 

How is Myrtle presented as the afternoon progresses? Consider the 

way Fitzgerald conveys Nick’s growing disorientation. 

Myrtle now assumes an ‘impressive hauteur’. Carried away by the 

atmosphere, a change into a too-extravagant dress and copious 

alcohol, ‘her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more 

violently affected moment by moment’. She disdains compliments and 

incongruously complains about ‘these people’, whether chiropodists or 

errand boys, who ‘will cheat you every time . . . you have to keep after 

them’. 

Fitzgerald’s images become more and more extraordinary in order to 

convey Nick’s growing disorientation. The guests and their behaviour 

become more and more grotesque. It is difficult not to suspect 

Fitzgerald of a little snobbery here – witness the artful way in which he 

drops malapropisms into Myrtle’s speech. However, the series of 

conversations, which he details, are characterised by much of the 

inconsequentiality, which is evident in East Egg society. Here too 

people barely listen to each other or turn the conversations to their 

own purposes, misunderstand (at Myrtle’s more ludicrously than at 

Daisy’s) or are frankly bored. 

Myrtle’s smile is ‘brilliant’ and false; she laughs ‘pointlessly’ and kisses 

the trophy dog with unnecessary ‘ecstasy’. Vapid remark succeeds 

vapid remark and the session only perks up when another hint is 

dropped regarding Gatsby (up to now spotted just once, inoffensive on 

his lawn): ‘I’d hate to have him get anything on me.’ 



TASK 23 

TASK 24 

It is Catherine again who delivers another bombshell: ‘Neither of them 

can stand the person they’re married to’ and while Myrtle’s response 

(‘violent and obscene’) doesn’t really surprise, Nick is ‘shocked’ that 

Tom has allowed an “elaborate lie” about Daisy’s vetoing a divorce to 

stand. Myrtle has clearly been making plans; we don’t care enough 

about her to mind that these are unlikely to be fulfilled. For a moment 

Nick dreams of ‘the blue honey of the Mediterranean’, demonstrating a 

more sophisticated view of it than Catherine has shown but a ‘shrill 

voice’ bids him back. 

How is Fitzgerald’s irony revealed as Myrtle describes her marriage to 

Wilson? 

Again Fitzgerald’s irony here is more savage than it is on East Egg 

when Myrtle reveals that she realised Wilson was not a gentleman 

because he had to borrow a wedding suit: ‘I . . . cried to the beat of the 

band all afternoon.’ She is to be lauded because she has only just 

been unfaithful. Nick is half-anxious to escape and half-drawn into the 

games, ‘simultaneously enchanted and repelled’. 

What is about these people that seems to draw Nick to them? 

Nick longs for a walk in ‘the soft twilight” but ‘each time I tried to go I 

became entangled in some wild, strident argument’, of the kind so 

characteristic of an increasingly drunken get-together. Despite himself, 

‘the inexhaustible variety of life’ intrigues him. 

The story of Myrtle and Tom’s courtship suffers from the same 

mixture of fakery and pathos. She fancied him for his clothes and then 

his body; and while this seems hopelessly shallow of her, there is 

poignancy in ‘he knew I lied’ and ‘You can’t live forever’. But she is 



TASK 25 

soon back to calculating her “list” of things, which she expects Tom to 

buy for her. 

As the chapter comes to a close, how does it hint at the savagery and 

arbitrary manner of Myrtle’s end and Tom’s ambivalent reaction to it? 

Here are my ideas: 

The evening deteriorates into even more incoherence. Nick falls 

asleep and wakes to more surreal activity, in which he satisfies 

himself as to the spot of shaving cream. The dog is ignored, people 

come and go, Tom is casually brutal while (as we might have 

guessed) leaving us in no doubt that he feels his mistress is not 

worthy to speak his wife’s name. Nick dimly recalls a drunken journey 

in the elevator and snatches of what must be Mr McKee’s apartment 

(ellipses signalling the disjointedness of his memories). He wakes to 

relative sobriety on the station platform, having little idea of how he 

arrived there. A new setting awaits, one equally corrupt but more 

engaging. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Three 

TASK 26 

This chapter explores Nick’s response to his experience of one of 

Gatsby’s famed parties. Consider the language in the opening 

paragraph and write down your ideas. 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Three


TASK 27 

Fitzgerald talks of ‘blue gardens’ where men and women ‘went like 

moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.’ 

There is a sense of mystery and the quality of a dream in this 

description. Moths flutter about and are attracted to the light just as 

these guests are attracted to the bright extravagance of Gatsby’s 

gardens. The whisperings reinforce the sense of mystery and 

ceaseless gossip that characterise Gatsby’s life whilst the champagne 

and stars reinforce the sense of unreality and illusion that add to the 

overall image of Gatsby’s life. 

Colour is an important image throughout the text and in the third 

paragraph the garden is described as being lit up like a ‘Christmas 

tree’ suggesting perhaps that it is gaudy, flashy and ostentatious. 

Equally the description of the food reinforces this image as the salads 

are of ‘harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a 

dark gold.’ Everything is bright and imposing but nevertheless illusory. 

The use of the word ‘bewitched’, suggests the idea of being 

enchanted, misled, and lured into a world of unreality which, like a 

champagne bubble, may burst at the touch of reality. 

The whole assembly at Gatsby’s house is characterised by 

superficiality and artifice. They do not know each other’s names and 

the laughter, like the ‘chatter’, is hollow and artificial it; ‘spilled with 

prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.’ Once again colour is 

important as, on p.46, we read of verandas ‘gaudy with primary 

colours’ and ‘yellow cocktail music’. This then is a rich and ornamental 

display but, rather than having any substance, it carries with it the 

qualities of a fairground. 

The paragraph concludes with a description of the ever-changing 

groups who dissolve and reform throughout the evening. There is, 

says Nick, ‘the sea-change of faces and voices and colour under the 

constantly changing light.’ What we see here is the idea of 

appearance versus reality being explored as the scene moves in and 

out of focus giving it a dreamlike quality. We are presented with a solid 

world of human bodies but these are transformed into the 

insubstantiality of Gatsby’s dream through Fitzgerald’s use of 

language. 

How is the dreamlike quality of the opening paragraph broken as 

Fitzgerald moves on to describe the guests at the party? 



TASK 28 

TASK 29 

The people who attend these parties are not guests as such, we are 

told on p.47; the ‘People were not invited - they went there’ and once 

there, ‘they conducted themselves according to the rules of behaviour 

of an amusement park.’ There are Englishmen who hang about in the 

hope of gaining something and taking a slice of the prosperity that 

surrounds them; they are, we are told, ‘aware of easy money in the 

vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right 

key.’ The dreamlike quality of the earlier description is broken here by 

the reality of human greed and exploitation. The so-called “guests” 

attend to take what they can and exploit opportunities. Their attitudes 

and behaviour reflect those of Wolfsheim and Tom in that they have 

no fixed moral values; they are opportunists who drift through life 

lifting what they can on the way. 

Comment on the way in which Fitzgerald uses the image of the 

moonlight in the passage on page 49. 

Moonlight is an important image throughout the novel. It is traditionally 

associated with romance, reverie and a desire for what is 

unattainable. On p.49, we read of ‘the premature moon, produced like 

the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket.’ Fitzgerald reinforces 

the artificiality of the whole scene by this reference to moonlight as 

Nick suggests that even the moon has been placed by some catering 

company in the sky at that moment for effect. 

Consider the gossip we hear on page 50 and make notes on how 

Fitzgerald uses it to create a picture of these people. 



TASK 30 

On p.50, we hear the endless gossip that surrounds the mystery of 

Gatsby’s background and history. Through these frivolous 

conversations and fantasies, we are given a picture of the emptiness 

of the lives of these party people. They deceive themselves and 

others as they create fantastic yet vacuous stories, all of which 

contribute to the over riding sense of illusion and unreality of the party. 

Now make notes on the social differences between East Egg and West 

Egg. 

The social difference between East Egg and West Egg is highlighted 

as Nick comments on the way his particular group led by Jordan 

‘preserved a dignified homogeneity’ representing he says ‘the staid 

nobility of the countryside – East Egg condescending to West Egg’. 

Clearly Daisy, Tom and Jordan are all products of this class divide and 

the comment serves to reinforce the difference between Daisy and 

Gatsby, a gap that can never really be filled by Gatsby’s acquisition of 

material things. The world that he has created of ‘spectroscopic gaiety’ 

is not one that could ever be fully countenanced by those whose lives 

have been the product of a moneyed existence and who have always 

had the trappings that wealth and plenty can provide. The 

kaleidoscopic colours and “echolalia” (meaningless and empty talk 

and banter) associated with Gatsby’s newly acquired wealth are seen 

as brash and lacking in taste to those who have always been part of 

the East Egg set. 



TASK 31 

TASK 32 

Comment on the significance of Nick’s meeting with ‘Owl Eyes’. 

As Nick looks around Gatsby’s house, he happens on a stout middleaged 

man whom he refers to as ‘Owl Eyes’. The image picks up the 

earlier reference to Dr TJ Eckleburg whose eyes stare out over the 

valley of the ashes. This man, for all that he is apparently drunk, is 

able to pinpoint the façade that is Gatsby’s life. He says of him, ‘This 

fella’s a regular Belasco’, when referring to the books in the library 

(p.52). David Belasco was a Broadway producer who created sets that 

looked real. Similarly Gatsby’s life is like a fantastic creation and is no 

more real than a stage production. 

What is the effect of Fitzgerald’s use of the moon imagery as the party 

comes to a crescendo? 

As the party reaches a crescendo the image of the moon is reiterated 

and we are told, ‘The moon had risen higher, and floating in the sound 

was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of 

the banjoes on the lawn.’ This is an unusual image and Fitzgerald is 

using synesthesia here (that is a fusing of different images) to present 

the effect of the crumbling dream. 



TASK 33 

Our introduction to Gatsby at this party, shows him distanced and 

alienated from the crowd that gathers in his garden. He is ‘standing 

alone on the marble steps’, an on-looker rather than a participant in 

life. As the girls swoon provocatively into the men’s arms ‘no one 

swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s 

shoulder’. He remains aloof and detached from the scene he has 

orchestrated. 

Make notes on how Fitzgerald reveals the conflict that lies underneath 

the façade of pleasure and excitement. In your answer, you should 

consider how the moonlight is now used to reveal the truth of the 

situation. 

As the party comes to a close, the bubble bursts to reveal the conflict 

and dissension that has been simmering under the façade of 

excitement and pleasure. Women are ‘now having fights with men 

said to be their husbands’ and, after a particularly acrimonious 

exchange, two of the wives are ‘lifted, kicking, into the night.’ The 

veneer of lively yet polite behaviour is swept away as the language 

changes to describe the minor car accident that occurs just outside of 

Gatsby’s drive. The scene is described as ‘bizarre’ as in the ditch lies 

a new coupe ‘violently shorn of one wheel’. The sounds emanating 

from Gatsby’s garden are no longer the harmonious trills of the 

orchestra but instead ‘a harsh, discordant din’ adding to ‘the already 

violent confusion of the scene.’ Gatsby’s dream is dissolving into a 



TASK 34 

TASK 35 

cacophony of horns and anger and the final collapse of his ideal is 

foreshadowed by Owl Eyes’s declaration that ‘I wasn’t driving. There’s 

another man in the car.’ 

As Nick leaves the scene, the image of the moon is used to reinforce 

Gatsby’s isolation and solitude in his quest for the unattainable. The 

result of the moonlight is to produce ‘A sudden emptiness”, which 

seemed to ‘flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing 

with complete isolation the figure of the host’. 

What links do you feel there might be between Nick and Gatsby as the 

chapter closes? 

There is an interesting parallel between Nick and Gatsby as the 

chapter closes. Here, Nick describes his fascination with New York 

and the illusions he creates, imagining how he might enter into the 

lives of the romantic women he sees in the crowd, ‘and no one would 

ever know or disapprove.’ He, like Gatsby, is pictured here as an on- 

looker regarding other people’s lives, ‘Imagining that [he], too, was 

hurrying towards gaiety and sharing their intimate excitement’. 

Make notes on the developing relationship between Nick and Jordan 

and consider the significance of her name. What impression of Jordan 

Baker are we left with at the end of the couple’s discussion? 


continue over


TASK 36 

The final section of the chapter addresses Nick’s fascination with 

Jordan Baker; interestingly her name is in fact two makes of American 

car. Cars in this novel are used both as symbols and images and as 

Nick begins to see what lies behind ‘The bored haughty face that she 

turned to the world’, he recognises her for what she really is. Jordan is 

unscrupulous, careless and prepared to cheat. She ‘instinctively 

[avoids] clever, shrewd men’ because she is ‘incurably dishonest’. In 

Nick’s exchange with Jordan about her poor driving, they are both 

aware that they are in fact having a discussion about ethical standards 

and about personal ethics in any relationship. Jordan exploits the 

discussion to manoeuvre Nick into a closer relationship, thus asserting 

her advantage when she says, ‘That’s why I like you’ (p.65). She sees 

Nick as morally safe, a “careful driver”, who obeys ‘interior rules that 

act as brakes on [his] desires’. Nick is a gentleman who still maintains 

a belief in the traditional mores of gentleman and lady and the 

exchange suggests that Jordan, although a woman who needs to 

‘satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body’, also desires the 

protection offered to a lady by traditional values. 

At the end of the chapter, how do we, the readers, see Nick? 

Nick’s concluding comment that ‘Everyone suspects himself of at least 

one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few 

honest people that I have ever known’ seems to present him as smug. 

He has so far been presented to us as a man who has been 

untouched and untried by experience and it is this that makes him 

believe himself to have a moral integrity that others lack. At this point 

in the novel Nick remains morally aloof, a man with no real emotional 

commitment. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Four 

TASK 37 

TASK 38 

Make notes on the way Fitzgerald presents the image of the car at the 

beginning of the chapter and the ways in which the guests all form part 

of Gatsby’s self-construction. 

Chapter Four opens with the continuation of the mystery that 

surrounds Gatsby. Gossip is rife among those who come to enjoy his 

largesse. Nick moves on to give us details of the various people, ‘the 

world and his mistress’, who visit Gatsby’s house but who know 

nothing about him. Amongst the description of the people, we have 

the recurring image of the motorcar as a destructive and violent force 

that can rip and destroy. Nick describes how ‘Mrs Ulysses Swett’s 

automobile ran over . . . [Ripley Snell’s] right hand.’ The list goes on 

revealing groups of random people with little or nothing in common 

and whose names Nick has difficulty remembering. They drift in and 

out of Gatsby’s world, assisting him only in so far as they are 

characters in his self- constructed dream. 

Consider the significance of the description of Gatsby’s car on page 

70. 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Four


TASK 39 

On p.70, we are given a description of Gatsby’s car. It is presented to 

us as being of ‘monstrous length’, ‘terraced with a labyrinth of 

windshields that mirrored a dozen suns’ and having ‘many layers of 

glass’ behind which was ‘a sort of green leather conservatory’. The car 

clearly represents luxury and opulence but through the use of words 

like ‘monstrous’ we see it being associated with ruthlessness and 

power. It is in itself an emblem of consumer power and material 

values. These carry with them the seeds of destructiveness and the 

violence that lies just under the surface of modern society. The 

‘labyrinth of windshields’ that mirrors a dozen suns reinforces the idea 

of Gatsby’s life being unreal, just a reflection of the truth. It is a life 

lived in the shadows where the boundaries that separate appearance 

from reality are constantly shifting. 

How is the mystery of Gatsby developed in the conversation that 

ensues on the way to New York? 

The mystery of Gatsby is enhanced by the character himself when he 

tells Nick a spurious history on the way to New York. Nick notes that 

he hurries over the phrase about being at Oxford suggesting that 

listening to him was like, ‘skimming hastily through a dozen 

magazines.’ This comment suggests the hollowness of Gatsby’s story, 

as he appears to weave a tissue of lies. However, when Gatsby 

produces the photograph of himself at Oxford, Nick’s doubts 

immediately disappear. Nick’s belief is ludicrously exaggerated as he 

insists that he can now see ‘the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on 

the Grand Canal’. This is the language of fairy tales, which suggests 

that Gatsby’s life is nothing but fantasy and in this case it appears 

rather unoriginal. Nick however wants to believe in Gatsby and so is 

prepared to engage with the idea of the romantic hero. As they drive 

over the Queensboro Bridge, casting light from all the glass of 

Gatsby’s magnificent car, Nick thinks that, ‘Anything can happen now’ 

and this feeling of expectation and possibility is personified in the form 



TASK 40 

of Gatsby as we are told, ‘Even Gatsby could happen, without any 

particular wonder.’ 

Make notes on the ambiguity of Nick’s attitude to Gatsby. 

Nick’s attitude to Gatsby is ambiguous. On the one hand, he is morally 

critical as he says in the opening chapter, ‘Gatsby, who represented 

everything for which I have unaffected scorn’ (p.8). However, Nick is 

also drawn to Gatsby because he engages with Gatsby’s 

‘extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness’ that sets him apart 

from the rest of Nick’s social group. He sees Gatsby in a double 

perspective; one view acknowledges him as a romantic hero whilst the 

other sees him only as the ‘proprietor of an elaborate road-house next 

door’. 

On first meeting Gatsby (p.54), Nick depicts two people. One 

‘understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed 

in you as you would like to believe in yourself’. The other image is one 

of an ‘elegant young rough neck . . . whose elaborate formality of 

speech just missed being absurd’. The first impression reveals to the 

reader the construct of Jay Gatsby whilst the second is that of James 

Gatz. The first is a romantic construct, the other being the product of 

his upbringing as a poor boy in the Midwest. Throughout the text, we 

see just how fragile and vulnerable this adopted identity is and how 

dependent it is on the observer entering into a complicity in makebelieve. 



TASK 41 

The intense heat of New York is a recurring image throughout the text 

and, as Gatsby and Nick meet for lunch, we are told that it was 

‘Roaring noon’. This focuses the reader on the glare and unrelenting 

heat of the day as Nick is forced to blink away the brightness to enable 

him to see clearly. 

Make notes on the character of Wolfsheim and the significance of the 

meeting that takes place. You should also comment on the description 

of the restaurant. 



It is in this heat that Nick is first introduced to Wolfshiem, a man 

whose name suggests that he a creature of prey, a carnivore who 

lives off those weaker than himself. He may appear ill educated and at 

times comic but clearly he wields sufficient power to terrify people and 

silence any opposition. As he tells Gatsby whilst Nick listens politely, 

‘”All right, Katspaugh, don’t pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth.” 

He shut it then and there.’ Under the impression that Nick is looking 

for a ‘business gonnegtion’, Wolfsheim talks expansively about his 

various dealings and methods. He shows, however, no human 

sympathy or remorse when he describes the death of Rosy Rosenthal 

or the execution of those convicted of the crime. Wolfsheim then is a 

notable presence in the world of crime. He is associated with a world 

characterised by corruption and representing the underside of the 

wealth, spontaneity and vitality created by the New York Jazz Age. 

Fitzgerald created the fictional Wolfsheim from the person of Arnold 

Rothstein, a man who reigned over the underworld until his murder in 

1928. The story of Rosenthal’s death is in fact true as the real 

Rosenthal had betrayed his police connections in New York to the 

press in 1912 and was subsequently murdered outside the Metropole 

Hotel. A police lieutenant called Becker was executed with others for 

this crime. The fixing of the World’s Series was certainly linked to 

Rothstein but the profits from this were nothing in comparison with the 

money to be made from bootlegging, that is to say, the illegal 

manufacture and sale of liquor after the Prohibition Bill in 1920. This 

Bill represented a final attempt by the puritan faction to legislate public 

morality on drinking. The result was quite the opposite of what had 

been intended and people not only acquired as much liquor as they 

wanted but also lost respect for the law and traditional moralities. As 

the lines of demarcation between the moral and the immoral became 

confused, so back street drug stores became outlets for the illegal 

trade of liquor and, on the whole, these were countenanced by the 

police. On p.74 we are reminded that Gatsby has a special 

relationship with the police commissioner. 

The fusion of the moral and the immoral is seen through the oxymoron 

applied to Wolfsheim as he eats with ‘ferocious delicacy’. Similarly the 

description of the restaurant reflects the merging of the old morality 

with the new freedom as the Presbyterian nymphs look down on the 

scene below. Interestingly however, nymphs are traditionally scantily 

clad figures who enjoy sexual freedom and so, in this image, we see 

the fusion of the two worlds as the old puritan ethic is replaced by the 

modern and sexually emancipated ideology. 

Wolfsheim is then a man who ‘just saw the opportunity.’ He is 

unscrupulous but ‘a smart man’, one who seizes the moment, takes 

what he can get and moves on. 



TASK 42 

In the last section of the chapter, we are given Daisy’s history through 

the voice of Jordan and, in consequence, her emotions and feelings are 

filtered through another woman’s knowledge. 

Make notes on how we, as readers, now respond to Daisy. 

Daisy is presented as the fairy-tale princess locked up in the tower 

unable to see her prince as she is ‘effectually prevented’ from going to 

New York to say goodbye to a soldier who is going overseas. Daisy’s 

romantic impulses are seen to be limited as ‘By the next autumn she 

was gay again, gay as ever.’ 

Unlike Myrtle, Daisy is never presented as having any overt sexuality; 

she is of the upper classes and as such is presented by Fitzgerald as 

emotionally passive. This is achieved by presenting Daisy’s story 

through the voice of first Jordan and then Nick. This device of using 

various narrators shifts all the emphasis onto Gatsby’s all-consuming 

desire. Daisy remains the object of his passion but she is never 

allowed to reveal her own desires or aspirations. 

Jordan relates Daisy’s second rebellion on the night before her 

wedding to Tom but this was just as easily deflected as her first 

attempt and the letter that she holds dissolves in the cold bath ‘like 



TASK 43 

TASK 44 

snow’. The fact that Daisy’s two attempts to follow Gatsby were so 

easily crushed suggests a consistent pattern, which anticipates her 

behaviour at the end of the novel. In reality, Gatsby’s Daisy is nothing 

more than a beautiful and enchanted dream. 

Make notes on the way Tom and Daisy’s marriage is presented through 

the voice of Jordan. 

The story of Tom and Daisy’s marriage is presented in terms of the 

destruction of a dream. Jordan insists that ‘I’d never seen a girl so 

mad about her husband’, a girl who wore ‘the most abstracted 

expression’ when he was out of the room, one who would ‘sit on the 

sand with his head in her lap by the hour . . . looking at him with 

unfathomable delight.’ Jordan assures Nick that all who saw them 

were touched by their love and ‘it made you laugh in a hushed, 

fascinated way.’ 

Once again Fitzgerald uses the image of the car to symbolise the 

destruction of the dream as Tom is involved in a car accident in which 

he ‘ripped a front wheel off his car’ and his infidelity is exposed in the 

papers for all to read. Thus Daisy’s short-lived dream is torn apart and 

she is publicly humiliated. 

As the chapter closes we are told of Gatsby’s desire to meet Daisy 

again and attempt to give life to his dream. Make notes on the effect 

this has on Nick. 



TASK 45 

Nick says that Gatsby came alive to him at this moment, ‘delivered 

suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendour.’ It is as if the 

possibility of the realisation of Gatsby’s dream has given him a new 

life in Nick’s mind. He is no longer just the man who dispenses 

‘starlight to casual moths’ but a man who has a purpose, direction and 

idealism that modern society lacks. To Gatsby, Daisy is an icon, an 

idol that he believes he can acquire through a visual display of wealth. 

‘He wants her to see his house’, Jordan says. 

Consider your response to Nick as the chapter closes and describe his 

feelings for Jordan. 

In the closing lines of the chapter, Nick describes his developing 

feelings for Jordan as he draws her up beside him ‘closer, this time to 

my face.’ He argues that he is able to enjoy this spontaneity because 

‘Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied 

face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs’. However, this 

is not altogether true, as on p.65 he has asserted that, before he could 

allow himself the luxury of a relationship with Jordan, ‘first I had to get 

myself definitely out of that tangle back home.’ We are not informed of 

Nick’s personal circumstances but it appears that perhaps his moral 

integrity is not as finely tuned, as he would like us to believe. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Five 

TASK 46 

A pivotal chapter – nearly halfway through the book, Gatsby and Daisy 

actually come face to face! By now we are more familiar with Gatsby 

though there are still contradictions about him, enough to intrigue us 

even if, after having met his sinister associate, we cannot find him 

exactly likeable. In this chapter, he appears at his most sympathetic 

and we come closer than we do perhaps anywhere else in the book to 

sharing his doomed vision and wanting his cause to prosper. 

Make notes on the way Nick seems to become complicit in Gatsby’s 

plans. 

Preoccupied with his date with Jordan, Nick comes home to discover 

Gatsby’s mansion ‘lit from tower to cellar’. Is there another party ‘with 

all the house thrown open to the game’? But no, Gatsby has been 

inspecting the house, doubtless with Daisy’s eyes in mind. He is 

restless and tries to persuade Nick to do something with him to divert 

him but Nick is exhausted. However, sensing Gatsby’s ‘suppressed 

eagerness’, he does reassure him that he will make the appointment 

with Daisy. Gatsby professes an incongruous indifference, speaking 

‘carelessly’ and reiterating that he does not ‘want to put [Nick] to any 

trouble’, only ‘with reluctance’ impressing on Nick that his lawn needs 

some attention. There is a curious politeness here, which sits oddly 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Five


TASK 47 

with his subsequent tactless offer to pay him ‘for a service’, suggesting 

that Gatsby’s good breeding lags behind his wealth. Still, if Tom is any 

representation of “old money”, manners and fine feelings, in 

Fitzgerald’s world, do not necessarily go hand in hand with worldly 

status. And Gatsby is sensitive enough to realise that Nick would not 

relish a ‘gonnegtion’ with Wolfshiem. 

‘I was too absorbed to be responsive’, Nick, continues and we suspect 

that the story may be about to take a new turn as a romance with 

Jordan develops or at least becomes pleasantly interesting. But 

Fitzgerald is more concerned with Gatsby’s story than with Nick’s. So 

we next see the narrator, ringing Daisy. ‘Don’t bring Tom’, he says – 

so already he seems complicit. 

Make notes on the significance of the weather and the presentation of 

Gatsby on the day of the visit. 

The day of the visit opens with ‘pouring rain’ and similar hints of 

pathetic fallacy crop up all through the chapter. There are more details 

of Gatsby’s impressive preparations and the gorgeousness of his own 

clothes but dark-eyed with sleeplessness and too overwrought to 

concentrate. ‘I don’t believe he saw a thing’, Nick tells us. Now the 

meeting is so imminent, he is described as “vague”, “hollow”, “with 

vacant eyes”, starting at the possibility of ‘invisible but alarming 

happenings’ as he waits and giving up too soon. His agitation 

communicates itself to Nick, who feels ‘a little harrowed myself”. 



TASK 48 

TASK 49 

Look at the description of Daisy on her arrival at Nick’s house and 

consider your response to her behaviour with Nick. 

Daisy arrives just in time. Inevitably she is dazzling, with her ‘bright 

ecstatic smile’, ridiculous diction and the ‘exhilarating ripple of her 

voice’; inevitably too, Nick describes her in plenty of romantic detail. 

Again he is slightly flirtatious with her. The reader is left to question 

whether she has really been anticipating an assignation with Nick – 

certainly when she says ‘Are you in love with me?’ It occurs to us that 

she is bored and desperate enough to embark on an affair even with 

her second cousin and her husband’s friend. 

Make notes on how Nick is drawn into Gatsby’s emotions as he meets 

Daisy. 

The suspense is cranked up as we discover that Gatsby has 

disappeared and maybe lost his nerve after all; then he is at the door, 

announcing himself by a ‘light dignified knocking’. Now of all times, he 

must behave absolutely properly. He is ‘pale as death . . . glaring 

tragically’ at Nick, as tense ‘as if he were on a wire’. Nick encourages 

to reader to share the ‘loud beating of my own heart’ as he is pulled 

into the excitement though he quickly leaves them together, 

symbolically shutting the rain out. 



TASK 50 

TASK 51 

How does Fitzgerald present the awkwardness of the meeting between 

Daisy and Gatsby? 

Fitzgerald describes the embarrassment of their opening scene 

consummately and all the more successfully because, with Nick, we 

are straining to overhear what is going on. Nick tells us of a ‘choking 

murmur, part of a laugh . . . a clear artificial note . . . a pause . . . 

[which] endured horribly.’ When he has to go into the room, he finds 

Gatsby trying to strike a pose which is ‘a strained counterfeit of perfect 

ease’ while his eyes are ‘distraught’ and the generally sophisticated 

Daisy is ‘frightened but graceful’. Even Nick is struck dumb as, redfaced, 

he tries to ‘muster up a single commonplace’ to keep the 

conversation flowing. The awkwardness of this scene is beautifully 

detailed. 

Consider the presentation of the viewing of Gatsby’s house and 

Daisy’s response to it. 


continue over


TASK 52 

Gatsby is about to give up and Nick has to be sharp with him – ‘You’re 

acting like a little boy’ – before he will face Daisy again on his own. 

Fitzgerald now takes us on a tour outside the house, cleverly 

establishing the illusion of passing time. The sun comes out and all is 

well inside the house too. ‘It was time I went back’ – and, of course, 

‘every vestige of embarrassment was gone.’ Daisy has been crying 

but ‘her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her 

unexpected joy’, while Gatsby ‘literally glowed’, now master of himself 

and indeed even of the elements, ‘like an ecstatic patron of recurrent 

light’. 

Endearingly, he now wants to show off the house, and his successful 

occupancy of it, to Daisy, assuring her that he keeps it ‘full of 

interesting people, night and day’; and she, childlike, is excited to see 

it while Nick is slightly uneasy at the ghosts lurking around them. 

Meanwhile Gatsby drinks in Daisy’s responses and her ‘actual and 

astounding presence’ which is more real to him than his possessions 

are. He is almost delirious as he ‘[runs] down like an over wound 

clock’ now that the afternoon is progressing more smoothly. The 

reader is left anxious about him – will the dream that he has been ‘full 

of . . . so long, dreamed it right through to the end’ be realised or has 

he ‘over-dreamed’? Emotional in her turn, Daisy cries at the beautiful 

selection of shirts. 

How does Fitzgerald undermine Gatsby’s dream and what is the effect 

of the first person narrative at this point in the novel? 



TASK 53 

The symbol of the green light is explained now and Fitzgerald creates 

more suspense with his suggestion that the authentic Daisy cannot 

possibly live up to Gatsby’s ideal: ‘His count of enchanted objects had 

diminished by one.’ Real life intrudes with a terse telephone 

conversation but the weather satisfactorily intervenes to save the 

romantic mood as Daisy exults in the ‘pink and golden billow of foamy 

clouds above the sea.’ Nick’s chaperoning cements their new-found 

alliance ‘perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily 

alone.’ (Tentative suggestions such as this make this first person 

narrative so successful. Because Nick’s view is restricted not 

omniscient, the reader is invited to form his or her own speculations 

and therefore to engage more fully in the story with Nick as 

confederate.) 

How is the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy presented as the 

chapter closes. Consider the effect of Fitzgerald’s use of the weather at 

this point. 

Still “trembling” as he lights Daisy’s cigarette, Gatsby confidently 

orders up music. Again Fitzgerald exploits the surroundings and the 

weather to illuminate what is going on in the house. ‘Outside the wind 

was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder . . . All the lights were 

going on . . . It was the hour of a profound human change and 

excitement was generating on the air.’ So Gatsby is “bewildered” once 

more ‘as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of 

his present happiness.’ Has the ‘colossal vitality of his illusion’ 

outpaced the reality, ‘gone beyond her’? Nick fears for him: ‘No 

amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in 



his ghostly heart.’ But the voice, whose charisma and ‘deathless song’ 

Fitzgerald has taken great care to build up throughout the book, 

succeeds in holding Gatsby (and Nick). Nick leaves the two of them, 

to what devices we are never told. Gatsby is now totally rapt and the 

couple are beautifully and aptly described as “remote”, ‘possessed by 

intense life’ – the ultimate in romantic affinity. Nick walks out into the 

rain, leaving them safe in their enchanted world. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Six 

TASK 54 

As this chapter opens, Fitzgerald uses the retrospective narrative style 

to relate Gatsby’s history. We learn that James Gatz’s parents were 

‘shiftless unsuccessful farm people’ but that Gatsby had for a long 

time, even as a child, detached himself from his surroundings and his 

background. Nick suggests that Gatsby had an ideal construction of 

himself. He says, ‘He was a son of God . . . and he must be about his 

father’s business’. However, the God, to which Gatsby subscribes, is 

the materialism of corporate America and his Father’s business is the 

pursuit of that dream, ‘a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty.’ Thus 

we see Gatsby dedicated to a beauty that only wealth can create or buy 

and is therefore morally suspect. 

How does Fitzgerald present Gatsby and his dream at this point in the 

novel? 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Six


TASK 55 

Nick suggests that Gatsby’s sleep was haunted by ‘A universe of 

ineffable gaudiness’; the use of the word “gaudy” echoes the overall 

effect that is created at Gatsby’s parties which we are told resemble 

little more than an amusement park. Gatsby is presented as being at 

the centre of his own illusion as he conjures up images of himself and 

the possibilities wealth will create. Nick comments that ‘these reveries 

provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of 

the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was 

founded securely on a fairy’s wing.’ This bathetic comment 

emphasises the tenuous nature of Gatsby’s dream; it suggests that it 

is nothing more than fantasy and illusion that could be shattered at the 

very touch of “cold philosophy” (Keats, Lamia). In the telling of 

Gatsby’s history we hear Nick creating Gatsby’s story and presenting 

to us his idea of how Gatsby behaved or what he thought. Like 

Daisy’s, Gatsby’s story is filtered through another character and 

Fitzgerald never allows the reader to engage first hand with the 

emotions and feelings of this character. 

We learn that Gatsby was tricked out of his inheritance from Dan Cody 

by Ella Kaye who, like Wolfsheim and Tom, is the true heir of the 

world created by men like Cody. She, like these other men, represents 

the world of power and greed and in this sense Gatsby is no match for 

her. He was left, we are told, with only his construction of himself as 

the ‘vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of 

a man.’ 

The narrative returns to Gatsby’s party where Tom is a guest. Tom 

has commented that women ‘run around too much these days to suit 

me’ and in consequence he accompanies Daisy to the party. What we 

see here is of course Tom’s moral hypocrisy as he is always keen to 

enter into a variety of dalliances. Nick comments that Tom’s presence 

gave the evening a ‘peculiar quality of oppressiveness’ and the 

atmosphere is characterised by ‘an unpleasantness in the air, a 

pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before.’ The tensions and 

conflict appear to be surfacing as the characters are seen together 

interacting with one another. 

How does Nick now see the party and its guests? Consider how he is 

becoming increasingly in tune with Gatsby’s and Daisy’s feelings and 

emotions. 



TASK 56 

Nick suggests that he is now looking at the party with new eyes, those 

of Daisy and clearly she dislikes what she sees. Here we see Nick’s 

emotional experience becoming increasingly identified with Gatsby’s 

as Gatsby is also looking at the world he has created, through Daisy’s 

eyes. Nick describes the young woman sitting under the tree as ‘a 

gorgeous, scarcely human orchid’, and we feel the tension and 

unease of those who look through Daisy’s eyes as what had been 

amusing and acceptable two weeks before had now ‘turned septic on 

the air.’ The guests now seem raucous and drunk; we hear vitriolic 

comments and see brash, lascivious behaviour. 

Nick interprets Daisy’s emotions and once again Daisy’s feelings are 

filtered through another character. She was, we are told, ‘appalled by 

West Egg . . . by its raw vigour . . . its inhabitants [who were herded] 

along a short-cut from nothing to nothing.’ Nick’s experience becomes 

increasingly surreal as he describes how one shadow ‘gave way to 

another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged 

and powdered in an invisible glass’, reinforcing the image of unreality 

and illusion. 

Tom’s accusations that Gatsby is a ‘bootlegger’ now add to the 

emotional temperature and it seems as if the illusion has been 

destroyed. 

Make notes on the effect of Daisy’s singing and the way Fitzgerald 

distances the reader from Daisy herself. 

At this point, Daisy begins to sing and Nick asserts that ‘each change 

tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air.’ Daisy’s 

voice restores the magic as it suggests a spell of enchantment that 

transcends verbal meaning. Nick suggests that Daisy is afraid of 

losing her place in Gatsby’s dream. He asserts that Daisy may feel 

that she cannot live up to Gatsby’s vision of her. Maybe she fears that 

her place will be usurped by ‘some unbelievable guest . . . some 



TASK 57 

authentically radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, 

one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of 

unwavering devotion.’ This is again Nick’s voice and the reader is 

never allowed to penetrate Daisy’s mind as we are given only Nick’s 

judgement about her feelings. 

Now make notes on the way Fitzgerald presents Gatsby’s dream. 

Consider the language and imagery used to illustrate this. 

On Daisy’s departure, Gatsby is left with ‘unutterable depression.’ He 

says, ‘I feel far away from her. It’s hard to make her understand.’ Nick 

misreads this as a response to her reaction to the dance but Gatsby 

dismisses this as of no importance. It is clear that Gatsby requires 

more of Daisy than an admission that she loves him now; what he 

wants is a total commitment, to say to Tom, ‘I never loved you.’ 

Gatsby is too self absorbed to see that he is asking for the impossible; 

he requires Daisy to disengage herself from the past; he wants to turn 

back time ‘just as if it were five years ago.’ Gatsby then, like Eddie 

Carbone in A View from the Bridge, refuses to settle for half; he 



TASK 58 

must have the complete world. Daisy is the object of Gatsby’s worship 

but it is a devotion that is egocentric and all consuming. 

As Gatsby walks ‘up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and 

discarded favours and crushed flowers’, we see the language 

reflecting the end of the dream; it is an illusion that has been trampled 

upon and destroyed by nothing more than the intervention of reality. 

Fitzgerald’s language suggests how difficult it is to express this dream 

as Nick reflects on what Gatsby sees ‘Out of the corner of his eye’. 

(p.118). 

Gatsby is seen to be cutting himself off from ordinary experience in an 

attempt to achieve a higher, more subjective ideal of himself. Once he 

has climbed to the secret place above the trees, he believes he could 

‘suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.’ 

Comment on the language used as the chapter closes and consider how 

Fitzgerald conveys the idea that Gatsby’s emotions cannot be 

articulated. 

The inflated language used by Fitzgerald to describe the first kiss 

between Gatsby and Daisy is used to convey the great turning point in 

Gatsby’s life. It is almost like a revelation and as such ‘blossomed for 

him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.’ The chapter 

closes with Nick trying to give voice to what appears to be an 

incommunicable emotion and the language suggests multiple layers of 

meaning. Nick condemns Gatsby’s sentimentality but in fact it appeals 

to his own vague longing for an ideal self. A phrase almost takes 

shape in his mouth but he is unable to articulate the emotion and so 

‘they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was 

uncommunicable forever.’ The reader is left with a sense of Gatsby’s 

dedication and intensity, emotions that cannot be expressed through 

language. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Seven 

TASK 59 

Chapter Seven is, in many ways, a turning point and climax in its own 

right in the story of The Great Gatsby. It is divided into several 

sections, each of which will be dealt with separately here. They are as 

follows: 

1. The description of Gatsby’s new lifestyle discovered when Nick 

visits his house for the first time after the party attended by Daisy. 

2. An extremely tense luncheon at the Buchanan’s house, the 

invitation extended through Gatsby by Daisy, apparently intended 

to be an “occasion for a scene.” 

3. A brief visit to the Wilsons’ garage. 

4. A sojourn at The Plaza Hotel, when Gatsby announces his love for 

Daisy. 

5. The disastrous return journey to East Egg, with its horrific 

accident. 

6. The aftermath of the accident and revelation of the truth about its 

cause; the reactions of the Buchanans. 

Make notes on Gatsby’s new lifestyle and consider how and why it is 

altered. 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Seven


TASK 60 

The reader learns that Gatsby has dismissed all of his servants and 

employed a bunch of ‘new people’. The grocery boy from the village 

suspects that they are not servants at all. It emerges that Gatsby has 

replaced the old servants in order to avoid gossip as ‘Daisy comes 

over quite often - in the afternoons.’ 

This revelation is accompanied by a new aura of quiet and peace in 

the house: the reader is told that Gatsby’s ‘career as Trimalchio was 

over.’ Trimalchio was an outlandish rogue, an egotist keen to 

dominate the party over which he presided as host. This clearly 

suggests a derogatory view of Gatsby’s career so far. Daisy, too, 

apparently disapproves of his elaborate and excessive parties. The 

reader learns that ‘the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card 

house at the disapproval in her eyes.’ The word caravansary suggests 

something cheap, gaudy and transient – clearly not Daisy’s style. 

Consequently, the entire lifestyle that Gatsby had constructed in order 

to impress her has been set aside. It may be seen as pitiful, or rather 

tragic, that Gatsby is so willing to change his lifestyle, so dearly 

acquired, in response to Daisy’s whims, when she was unwilling or 

unable to change hers for him. 

The details of the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby are not 

revealed. This adds to the sense of mystery that is preserved 

throughout the text by Fitzgerald, possibly in order to ensure that the 

relationship is not seen by the reader as tawdry or cheap, although it 

is in essence no different from Tom’s dalliances. 

Now make notes on the way Fitzgerald creates tension when 

describing luncheon at the Buchanans’. 



The communication of this invitation through Gatsby suggests initially 

to Nick that ‘Something was up.’ The air of tension is increased by 

Fitzgerald’s use of pathetic fallacy: the weather is ‘Hot! . . . Hot! . . . 

Hot! . . .’ so that it, like the atmosphere in the chapter, ‘hovered on the 

edge of combustion’. 

It is almost the last day of summer, appropriately. There is a feeling 

that this is the last chance for Gatsby; that the darker days of autumn 

and winter are on their way; that things are drawing to a close with the 

demise of the summer. 

The telephone call received by Tom at luncheon (from Mr. Wilson) 

adds to the air of expectancy and tension. It is also the first time the 

reader has seen all of the main characters of the play gathered 

together, adding to the idea that the climax is due soon. Daisy and 

Jordan’s skin is powdered over, suggesting a papering over of cracks, 

and the falsity of the situation. 

Nick contemplates ‘the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed 

isles’, almost palpably desiring an escape. 

Daisy’s public kissing of Gatsby (albeit when Tom is out of the room), 

suggests that she is ready to make the relationship public, but her 

“clogging” on the fireplace suggests an almost hysterical desperation. 

Tom notes the change in the footing of their relationship, as Daisy 

exchanges apparently trivial comments that betray their intimacy: ‘You 

always look so cool’. His response to this is an attempt to shield Daisy 

from Gatsby, by trying to have her travel in his car to New York. He 

clearly recognises that ‘She had told him that she loved him.’ 

Daisy’s “presentation” of her child, Pammy, to Gatsby and the 

assembled company has a striking effect upon Gatsby: she is 

concrete proof of the marriage (and/or love) between Tom and Daisy, 

inescapable evidence that Daisy has shared the last 5 years of her life 

with someone else. 

Tom agrees to Daisy’s suggestion that they go to town (Manhattan) as 

a welcome distraction from the almost surreal scene that appears to 

be brewing at the house. As the girls prepare for the outing, Nick 

notes ‘the moon hovered already in the Western sky’, suggesting that 

time is again running out. 

As Tom gets whisky, Fitzgerald has Gatsby explain the irresistible 

allure of Daisy’s voice: ‘Her voice is full of money’. This clarifies the 

whole moral stance of the characters in the text: drawn to the money 

in her siren’s song. Nick thinks of her at this moment as ‘High in a 

white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…’ in a vision that 

simultaneously draws together the multiple images of silver, gold and 

white that Fitzgerald has used throughout the text to suggest money 

and wealth. 

The drive to town provides another opportunity for Gatsby and Daisy 

to be alone together as Daisy evades Tom’s suggestion that he drive 

her ‘in this circus wagon’ – Gatsby’s car. This description clearly 



TASK 61 

TASK 62 

demonstrates the contempt of the patrician for the vulgar display of 

wealth by Gatsby, the parvenu. (One might also see this attitude 

mirrored in Daisy’s rejection of the ‘caravansary’ of Gatsby’s parties). 

Now consider the significance of the visit to the Wilsons’ Garage. 

The brief stop at the Garage sets up the horrific incident to come later 

in the chapter, as Myrtle sees Tom driving Gatsby’s car: it is this car 

that she runs out to stop later in the chapter, with such disastrous 

consequences, clearly expecting Tom to be driving it still. 

This stop is also significant as Tom learns that Wilson is moving west 

and taking his wife with him: he has learned that ‘Myrtle had some sort 

of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him 

physically sick.’ He then has to contemplate the possibility of losing his 

wife and his mistress in one day. He vaguely agrees to let Wilson 

have the car, over which they have been bargaining since the 

beginning of the text, partly out of pity and partly because the whole 

business deal has become unimportant beside the tragedy threatening 

to engulf his private life. ‘Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic.’ 

Consequently, they speed towards town as the pace of the chapter 

increases similarly. 

Look carefully at the visit to the Plaza Hotel and make notes on the 

row that ensues. 


continue over


Once ensconced in the privacy of the Plaza Suite, the discomfiture of 

the group becomes more obvious. Daisy complains about the heat as 

Tom loses patience and turns on Gatsby, challenging him to reveal 

where he picked up the expression, ‘old sport’. Gatsby’s revelations 

that he had legitimately studied (briefly) at Oxford after the war diffuse 

the tension briefly, but Tom soon begins the long-awaited 

confrontation that has loomed since the beginning of the text, asking, 

‘What kind of row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?’ 

The apparently disconnected revelation that Biloxi was actually an 

impostor, a gatecrasher, at Tom and Daisy’s wedding appears 

unfortunately to mirror the role that Gatsby seems to have played in 

their marriage. 



Gatsby, however, seems determined to see the argument through to 

its conclusion. He tells Tom confidently that ‘Your wife doesn’t love 

you. She’s never loved you. She loves me.’ However, the confidence 

of his assertions must be considered to be undermined by Daisy from 

the beginning, as she pleads, ‘He isn’t causing a row.’ 

Unfortunately for Gatsby, Daisy is to be defeated, but not by Tom: 

rather, by the absolutism of his own demands upon her love: ‘Just tell 

him the truth – that you never loved him – and it’s all wiped out for 

ever.’ This deceptively simple request eloquently summarises 

Gatsby’s entire dream – that Daisy would be returned to him, wholly 

and completely untouched by the past 5 years which she has spent 

with Tom. However, the absolutism of the request highlights the 

inherent incompatibility of their characters: Daisy is willing to drift 

through life while Gatsby is on a quest, a mission, a search for his own 

personal grail. 

Daisy’s hesitation is immediately picked upon by Tom who uses 

blatant and shameless emotional manipulation to wring from Daisy an 

admission that she had loved him. ‘Oh you want too much! I love you 

now – isn’t that enough?’ 

Tom then compounds his control over the situation, and further 

undermines Gatsby’s grip on Daisy, by revealing the seamier side of 

Gatsby’s business ‘gonnegtions’, that he ‘sold grain alcohol over the 

counter’ in his drug stores. Tom’s accusation of bootlegging is not 

denied by Gatsby, marking him out for Daisy as ‘a common swindler 

who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger.’ (Tom’s words). 

Daisy is apparently ‘terrified’ by the blazing row. Jordan tries to 

distance herself from the scene by balancing ‘an invisible but 

absorbing object on the tip of her chin.’ 

Eventually, Gatsby tries to persuade Daisy of his innocence, 

‘defending his name against accusations that had not been made’, but 

Nick notes, ‘with every word she was drawing further and further into 

herself, so that he gave up, and only the dead dream fought on as the 

afternoon slipped away…’. 

Tom asserts his power over Daisy then, acknowledging that Gatsby 

no longer poses any threat to his relationship with her, by dismissing 

the pair of them together, telling them to ‘start on home’ and that ‘He 

[Gatsby] won’t annoy you. I think he realises that his presumptuous 

little flirtation is over.’ This description of the last five years of Gatsby’s 

life stresses Tom’s view of the unimportance of Gatsby’s quest and 

attests to his perceived unimpeachable superiority over Gatsby, a 

position granted him because of his wealth and social status. 



TASK 63 

TASK 64 

Make notes on the return journey to East Egg and consider how 

Fitzgerald introduces the imminent death. 

In this section, Nick foreshadows the accident with Myrtle, saying that, 

‘we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.’ Nick 

contemplates the future without enthusiasm. Fitzgerald creates an 

atmosphere of disappointment and missed opportunities by 

contrasting Nick’s despondence with Tom’s exultation and triumphant 

laughter, although he feels some (fleeting) reassurance at Jordan’s 

presence. 

What is the effect of the change of narrative perspective at this point? 

The narrative then changes its perspective, as we hear from 

Michaelis, the principal witness at the inquest into Myrtle’s death. The 

incoherence of the account shrouds the accident in mystery. Tom’s 

entanglement with Myrtle and his connections with the car that hit her 

(he was, of course, driving it earlier that day) add a further element of 

tension to the narrative. 



TASK 65 

How does the way Fitzgerald presents Myrtle’s death highlight the 

suffering of the lower classes? You may like to consider the contrast 

between Myrtle and Daisy revealed through the language used. 

In spite of Tom’s grief on the way home and his condemnation of 

Gatsby for what he considers to be a shameful display of cowardice, 

the reader is left with the feeling that the lower echelons of society 

have again been made to suffer for the trivial “traumatic crises” that 

cast a fleeting shadow over the over-endowed lives of the rich and 

powerful upper classes. The description of Myrtle’s body, ‘her life 

violently extinguished,’ mingling ‘her thick dark blood with the dust’, 

evokes pathos and sympathy from the reader. It suggests the terrible 

waste of this woman’s life, of her ‘tremendous vitality’, so much in 

contrast to Daisy’s wraith-like existence, and the injustice of a society 

that appears to allow its upper classes to sin with impunity. The same 

society that appears to allow the less financially well endowed, like 

Gatsby and Myrtle, to become victims and to suffer for every 

misdemeanour or for the misplaced dream of one day becoming 

members of the privileged class. 



TASK 66 

TASK 67 

How is Gatsby linked in Wilson’s mind with Myrtle’s death and how is 

Daisy presented here? 

Tom asserts his innocence to Wilson, saying that the yellow car that 

hit Myrtle was not his. He assumes that Gatsby was driving the car: 

‘The God damned coward. He didn’t even stop his car.’ The reader 

later learns, from Gatsby’s conversation with Nick that Myrtle ran out 

towards the car, presuming that Tom was driving it. Of course, Gatsby 

and Daisy were in the car. Daisy was driving. There was a woman 

driving in the opposite direction. Although Daisy initially turned the car 

away from Myrtle and toward the other car, ‘she lost her nerve and 

turned back’, for the second time that day, choosing self-preservation 

over any element of risk. 

How is Gatsby seen as an outsider as the chapter closes? 

The final turning point in the chapter comes as Gatsby lurks, 

abandoned, outside the Buchanans’ house. Fitzgerald creates an 

intimate scene between Tom and Daisy inside the house, engrossed 

in each other again, enclosing themselves in the protective cocoon of 

their relationship. Gatsby remains typically alone and isolated, outside 

the house. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Eight 

TASK 68 

TASK 69 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Eight 

Comment on the significance of the first three lines of the chapter. 

These opening lines create an ominous feeling of foreboding. 

Something, as yet undefined, is about to happen. Nick’s insomnia 

testifies to his disturbed state. The personification of the foghorn 

‘groaning’ on the sound suggests that the very landscape is troubled. 

Nick’s premonition of ill feeling towards Gatsby shows remarkable 

prescience on his part. 

How are the feelings of loss and disorientation presented in this 

chapter? 

There is a feeling of loss and disorientation that seems to settle upon 

Gatsby almost palpably in this chapter. As he explores with Nick, they 

appear without direction again, like two little boys lost. The dust 

referred to again seems to be an embodiment of the feeling of decay 

and mortality. It seems that now Gatsby’s dream has gone, all of the 

illusions that sustained him have also crumbled into dust. Gatsby is


TASK 70 

TASK 71 

waiting for some news from Daisy: ‘He was clutching at some last 

hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free.’ 

What is the significance of the story that Gatsby now reveals to Nick? 

It is at this point that Gatsby reveals his “story” to Nick, because ‘”Jay 

Gatsby” had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice’. The 

glass metaphor seems entirely appropriate: hard and tangible but 

fragile, like Gatsby’s image of himself and his dream of himself with 

Daisy. 

Gatsby describes to Nick his attraction for Daisy. He was clearly 

attracted by her social status, her money and the fact that she was not 

accessible to him. The scenario is almost comparable to the archaic 

literary convention of Courtly Love. His uniform gave him access to 

her. Daisy was already interested in wealth and materialism and 

seemed to embody and represent these “qualities”. He enjoyed the 

idea that others admired Daisy; it increased her value to him. The idea 

of her “value” reduces her to the status of a possession. ‘He took what 

he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously’, whilst the ‘invisible 

cloak of his uniform’ gave him temporary access to her social strata. 

Comment on the way Fitzgerald exposes the hollow nature of Gatsby’s 

dream. 


continue over


Surprisingly, having taken Daisy ‘under false pretences’, leading her to 

believe that he was ‘from much the same [social] strata as herself’, he 

finds himself strangely moved by her and unable to forget her. ‘He 

found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail.” He 

has become a VOTARIST (a person who follows a cult or a God 

almost obsessively). The Holy Grail was supposedly the cup of Christ, 

supposed to have disappeared but promised to reappear to a Knight 

who was worthy, such as Lancelot. Lancelot unfortunately fell in love 

with Guinevere, King Arthur’s wife, and their adulterous relationship 

was one of the main causes of the downfall of the Round Table. There 

are obvious parallels here with the Tom-Daisy-Gatsby love triangle. 

The quest for the Holy Grail became symbolic: representing 

somebody devoting himself or herself to the pursuit of something 

worthwhile. This is how Gatsby has envisaged himself. Unfortunately, 

as Fitzgerald emphasises throughout the text, Daisy is not worthy of 

this kind of adulation. She is a shallow, shabby person and Gatsby is 

taken in by her. He is seduced by her riches and her Siren’s voice: 

‘Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that 

wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, 

and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot 

struggles of the poor.’ 

However, Gatsby found himself cut off as Daisy ‘vanished into her rich 

house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby – nothing.’ Conversely, 

although it was Gatsby who thought he was seducing her, taking 

advantage of her, he finds that the tables have turned and he feels 

betrayed and abandoned by her, as ‘He felt married to her.’ 

Gatsby cherishes the memory of the last afternoon before he went 

away, when he sat with Daisy in his arms. The ‘deep memory’ this 

afternoon imparted sustained him during the five years apart that 

followed their ‘month of love’. 



TASK 72 

TASK 73 

Consider the way Fitzgerald emphasises the temptations that constantly 

surround Daisy. 

He determined therefore to do ‘extraordinarily well in the war’, in order 

to penetrate Daisy’s social strata. Daisy’s letters to him became 

increasingly desperate: she needed her life shaping immediately. 

Fitzgerald describes the ‘grey tea hour [when] there were always 

rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh 

faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns 

around the floor.’ The image is full of paradoxes, suggesting the 

concentration of life, energy and the temptations that surrounded 

Daisy constantly. 

Those temptations crystallised in the shape of Tom Buchanan, whose 

‘wholesome bulkiness’ was so much of a contrast to Gatsby. Daisy 

succumbed to his advances and wrote to Gatsby. ‘The letter reached 

Gatsby while he was still at Oxford.’ 

What is the effect of the narrational shift? How does Gatsby now 

appear to the reader? 



TASK 74 

The narration snaps back into the present tense as Gatsby tells Nick, 

almost trying to convince himself, ‘I don’t think she ever loved him . . . 

Of course she might have loved him just for a minute, when they were 

first married – and loved me more even then, do you see?’ 

Gatsby’s explanation that ‘it was just personal’ is extremely 

ambiguous. The “just” seems to diminish the importance of the thing 

(Daisy’s love for Tom?) and Gatsby appears rather pathetic, clinging 

to the tatters of his broken dream and making excuses for Daisy. 

Nick’s explanation, that Gatsby suspected some immensity in the 

affair that could not be measured, seems to be almost absurdly 

protective of Gatsby. 

Gatsby then tells Nick how he visited Louisville when Daisy and Tom 

were still on their honeymoon, which seems like a poignant attempt by 

Gatsby to steep himself in the atmosphere that she came from. 

Note carefully and comment on:- 

‘He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of 

air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. 

But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew 

that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.’ 

This shows us that Gatsby was aware, even at this very early stage, 

that he had already reached and passed over the pinnacle of his 

relationship with Daisy. Does this mean that he was aware at some 

level, even before beginning the “quest”, that it was illusory and 

pointless? If so, this seems to make his quest, to rise above the base 

materialism that inspired it, a wasted and fruitless effort. 



TASK 75 

TASK 76 

Comment on the pathos created by Gatsby’s remark about never using 

his swimming pool. 

As Gatsby’s narration ends, one of Gatsby’s former servants comes to 

tell him that he is intending to drain the pool that day. This adds to the 

feeling of decay, the sense that things are coming to an end. We 

realise, as Gatsby protests that he never had a chance to use it, that 

all of the wealth that he has accumulated and all of the products of 

that wealth have never been for his own pleasure but merely to make 

himself a suitable suitor for Daisy. There is an almost tangible pathos 

to the idea of the pool being drained when he had never got any use 

out of it, just as he had never seemed to get any enjoyment out of his 

parties. 

Consider Nick’s response to Gatsby now and make notes on how 

Fitzgerald uses this to justify the dream. 

Note Nick’s paternalistic attitude towards Gatsby: ‘I didn’t want to 

leave Gatsby.’ It could be a premonition of the danger to come, or 

simply the protectiveness we have observed Nick displaying towards 

Gatsby before. Nick’s assertion that, ‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ and that 

Gatsby is ‘worth the whole damn bunch put together’, stands as a final 

testimonial to Gatsby’s romantic, idealised stance on life and to Nick’s 

approval of it. This stands opposed to the materialistic, cold and 



TASK 77 

unfeeling qualities observed by him in the Buchanans over the last 2 

chapters. It serves also to separate Gatsby from their moral vacuity, 

suggesting that his ‘incorruptible dream’ somehow justified the shady 

dealings that underpinned it. 

Nick returns to work, where he has a rather empty conversation with 

Jordan over the telephone. The petering out of their conversation 

appears to suggest the end of their relationship. 

Nick now slips into the role of an omniscient narrator. Make notes on 

the way he describes Wilson’s response to the accident and his attitude 

to the advertisement that dominates the landscape. 

Nick gives us information about the events of that afternoon as if he 

has pieced together the information in retrospect. He describes the 

events at the Wilson’s garage on the night of the accident; how Wilson 

had announced that he ‘had a way of finding out whom the yellow car 

belonged to’. He also suggests that he knew that Myrtle was involved 

in a secret life, as a result of the bruises on her face received during 

the events narrated in Chapter 2. He had also found the dog leash, a 

tiny and ridiculous piece of “ocular proof” (like the handkerchief in 

Othello) of Myrtle’s infidelity. He has decided that the driver of the 

yellow car (he thinks it was Gatsby) must have been Myrtle’s lover, 

noting that she ran out deliberately to speak to him. Of course, Myrtle 

thinks that Tom is the driver of the car, as she saw him driving it 

earlier. In reality, it is Daisy who is the driver. 

Wilson reveals to Michaelis that he had taken Myrtle to the window 

and held her before the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg, telling her, ‘You may 



TASK 78 

fool me, but you can’t fool God!’ Michaelis’s flat response, ‘That’s an 

advertisement’, punctures the pomposity here. Wilson, however, is 

clearly a man who now feels that he is on a mission, possibly 

sanctioned by God, and when Michaelis leaves, he heads to West 

Egg to hunt down the killer of his wife. 

Now make notes on the concluding lines of this chapter and consider 

both the pathos of the description and the literal image of the shattered 

dream. 

Gatsby is seen taking advantage of his pool while he still can. He still 

cherishes a forlorn hope that Daisy might call. Nick notes, however, 

that even Gatsby must doubt the probability of this; that he ‘had lost 

the warm old world, paid a high price for living too long with a single 

dream.’ The price he is to pay will shortly be revealed as Nick notes 

an ‘ashen, fantastic figure gliding towards him through the amorphous 

trees.’ 

The figure is Wilson, bent on revenge. He shoots Gatsby as he lies on 

his mattress in the pool, and then shoots himself. Nick’s comment, ‘the 

holocaust was complete’, sums up the feeling of desolation created by 

this point in the text. There is a sickening sense of pathos, but also of 

the peculiarly appropriate sight of the apparition of Gatsby floating 

listlessly without direction now that his dream has been shattered. 


The Great Gatsby Chapter Nine 

TASK 79 

How does Fitzgerald use the opening lines of this chapter to eliminate 

the need to describe the finding of Gatsby’s body? 

The opening lines of Chapter 9 eliminate the necessity for Nick to 

provide details of the intricacies surrounding the discovery of Gatsby’s 

body: ‘After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night 

and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and reporters and 

photographers and newspaper men in and out of Gatsby’s front door.’ 

Details of the period after Gatsby’s death are, however, recorded. Nick 

calls Daisy only half an hour after the discovery of the body, only to 

find that she has gone away with Tom for an indefinite period of time. 

Meyer Wolfsheim proves to be similarly difficult to track down. 

The nature of Gatsby’s business is further revealed when someone 

called Slagle rings Gatsby’s house to inform him that his latest 

business deal has run into trouble. The caller tells Nick (assuming him 

to be Gatsby) that one of his employees has been apprehended in 

what appears to have been an attempt to cash bonds illegally. Slagle 

terminates the telephone call, along with his associations with Gatsby, 

when he is informed by Nick of the death. 


The Great Gatsby – Chapter Nine


TASK 80 

TASK 81 

Look at the list of those who do not attend the funeral and consider 

how this creates a sense of pathos. 

Three days later, Gatsby’s father arrives from Minnesota. Mr Gatz, 

together with Nick and the owl-eyed man from Gatsby’s library, are the 

only mourners at Gatsby’s funeral. Even the lodger, Klipspringer, goes 

on a day trip instead of attending his late landlord’s funeral. Nick 

meets with Wolfsheim in a desperate attempt to persuade him to 

attend the funeral. Despite later claiming that ‘I raised him up out of 

nothing, right out of the gutter’, Wolfsheim’s letter to Nick says that he 

‘cannot get mixed up in this thing now.’ 

How does Henry Gatz’s arrival serve to increase the pathos even 

further? 

Henry Gatz’s appearance in this chapter serves to increase the pathos 

still further. He is portrayed as a sad and lonely old man mourning the 

loss of a son he hardly knew. It also provides pathos as it suggests 



TASK 82 

the sort of person Gatsby might have turned out to be, had he not 

reinvented himself. 

Gatz’s revelation of Gatsby’s ‘schedule’ demonstrates the 

extraordinary determination of the young ‘Jimmy’ to better himself. It 

could also be seen as demonstrating his perfectionism, a 

perfectionism that extended into all areas of his life, so that he wanted 

his relationship with Daisy to be utterly perfect as well, not shoddy and 

adulterous. Unfortunately, Daisy did not share this idealism. She was 

to show herself to be content with the imperfect world and the way of 

life of the East. 

Make notes on the description of Henry Gatz and his relationship with 

his son. 

Gatz appears tense and nervous, tugging at his ‘sparse grey beard’. 

He is ‘helpless and dismayed’, clearly nervous in the alien 

environment. The reader can not help but make comparisons with 

Gatsby and wonder whether he would have turned out like this man. 

Gatz is clearly proud of his son: ‘when he looked around him now for 

the first time and saw the height and splendour of the hall and the 

great rooms opening out from it into the other rooms, his grief began 

to be mixed with an awed pride.’ Gatsby has remained in contact, if 

distant, over the years. Gatsby has been financially generous to his 

parents, buying them the house they live in the West. Such acts of 

generosity do not, however, suggest closeness: even the use of the 

name Jimmy suggests that his father does not know what kind of 

person his son had grown into. 



TASK 83 

TASK 84 

How is the bond between Nick and Gatsby developed and how does 

this contribute to Nick’s increasing maturity? 

As the chapter continues, the reader is increasingly aware of a bond 

between Nick and Gatsby: ‘Gatsby and me against them all.’ Nick’s 

sympathy for Gatsby increases his hostility towards the uncaring world 

as Nick finds himself securely ‘on Gatsby’s side, and alone.’ Fitzgerald 

seems finally to suggest a “judgement” on Gatsby that Nick promised 

to withhold at the beginning, despite his assurances that ‘Gatsby 

turned out all right in the end.’ Indeed, and Nick matures rapidly over 

the course of this chapter, eventually realising that he had been 

foolish to expect any similar decency from Gatsby’s associates. 

The funeral is a miserable affair, with only the three mourners. Daisy 

does not send a message or a flower. Nick narrates morosely, ‘Nobody 

came.’ The Owl-Eyed man sums up the reader’s likely reaction when 

he is stunned at the paucity of mourners: ‘Why my God! They used to 

go there in their hundreds . . . The poor son-of-a-bitch.’ 

Consider how the funeral affects Nick and how it colours his attitude to 

the East. 



TASK 85 

At the funeral, Nick retreats into his own memories for comfort, 

disturbed by the betrayal and abandonment of Gatsby. Prompted by a 

need to think of something permanent and trustworthy, his thoughts 

turn to the past. Nick’s experiences in the East have been ‘distorted’ 

by his friendship with Gatsby, indeed he says: ‘After Gatsby’s death 

the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ 

powers of correction.’ Consequently, Nick decides to return to the 

safety and security of life in the West. He notes that all of the main 

characters in the text were Westerners and that maybe they lacked 

some quality that would have made them suitable for life in the East. 

Possibly this might be a deficiency in their moral natures that left them 

prey to self-deception and carelessness. After Gatsby’s death, West 

Egg became ‘a night scene by El Greco . . . a sullen overhanging sky 

and a lustreless moon.’ 

Make notes on the way Jordan’s response to Nick raises questions over 

his morality. 

Before returning home, Nick meets with Jordan. They have not been 

close since Gatsby’s death and Jordan tells Nick that she is now 

engaged to another man, after admitting to having been shocked by 

his jilting of her. She also accuses him, in a roundabout way, of 

dishonesty, suggesting that he is not the ‘honest, straightforward 

person’ she had taken him to be. This might be a little unfair here, as 

he is actually being honest in ending their relationship officially. If we 

think about his treatment of the girl from the West, we may wonder 

whether Fitzgerald is inviting us to question the moral probity of his 

narrator in the light of Jordan’s response to him. 



TASK 86 

Comment on the way in which Fitzgerald presents Nick’s accidental 

meeting with Tom and the effect this meeting has on Nick’s view of 

both Tom and Daisy. 

Nick also meets Tom, accidentally. His initial refusal to shake hands 

with Tom leads to Nick’s discovery that he had ‘guessed right about 

those missing hours’, that Tom had betrayed Gatsby to Wilson. Nick 

also discovers that Tom does not know that it was Daisy driving the 

car, unless he is lying to protect her when he says that Gatsby ran 

over Myrtle ‘like you’d run over a dog’. Nick concludes that ‘They were 

careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and 

creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast 

carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together…’. It is 

interesting and symbolic that Tom is entering a jewellery store when 

he meets Gatsby. It appears to emphasise Tom’s substitution of 

financial values for moral ones. Again, we are reminded of the pearl 

necklace, which he had bought for Daisy before their wedding. The 

reference to cuff-buttons reminds us of the disturbingly carnivorous, 

cannibalistic Meyer Wolfsheim with his fine specimens of human 

molars. This, in turn, links Tom to Wolfsheim and his distasteful 

dealings: despite Tom’s moral outrage at Gatsby being a bootlegger at 

the Plaza Suite, Fitzgerald seems to be making the comment that they 

are both dangerous people in their own careless ways. Nick 

characterises this carelessness as childish and agrees to shake 

hands. 



TASK 87 

Before returning home, Nick visits Gatsby’s house one last time, a sort 

of tribute to his dead friend. The fleeting visit of a presumptuous (and 

ill-informed) guest pays testimony to the sort of assumptions that the 

people who came to his parties felt free to make about the nature of 

Gatsby’s hospitality. The ‘obscene word’ seems to suggest the utter 

desecration of his dream. 

Look carefully at the last four paragraphs and make notes on how Nick 

ultimately universalises Gatsby’s dream. Consider the effect of the 

rhythm of these concluding lines and the how the change in pace 

reflects the overall experience both of Gatsby and the reader (or 

mankind in general). 



The final four paragraphs of the text are tightly written and poetic. 

They begin with this visit to Gatsby’s house, which seems to suggest 

that Gatsby’s dream, albeit fantastic, was related to a deep-seated 

need in humanity to cling to faith and hope in the future. 

As Nick walks on the beach, he realises that there was a parallel 

between Gatsby’s dream of a new self and a new life with Daisy and 

the dream of the first settlers of the New World when they landed 

upon the “fresh green shores” of America. (Both were equally 

determined and undeterred by anyone or anything that got in their 

way). In articulating this parallel, Nick universalises Gatsby’s dream 

and demonstrates that his ‘gift for hope’, his ‘romantic readiness’ was 

something that is common to all men, and just extraordinarily well 

developed in Gatsby. 

Just as it was the beach that witnessed the first sight of amphibious 

life as the first creatures emerged from the sea, so too was Gatsby’s 

Platonic conception of himself realised upon the shores of Lake 

Superior. The green light then, links with the “fresh green” land of 

America, the colour suggesting the fecundity of new opportunity, new 

hopes and new life. Finally, the whole human experience is linked to 

Gatsby’s personal failure. 

Gatsby never accepted the fundamental fact that it was not possible to 

repeat the past. Simultaneously, he strived for the ‘orgiastic future’ 

and found, like many other idealistic dreamers, that it is not always 

possible to attain this. As the human conception of the future is always 

formed before its arrival, a tragic dilemma presents itself: the person 

striving for the future is always doomed to be chasing forward and 

towards something that has already past. The future for humans is 

inevitable and unavoidable, but our own version of it (a Platonic 

version?) is impossible, which is why ‘we beat on, boats against the 

current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’ 

After his month of love with Daisy in Louisville, Gatsby was always 

aware that he had lived through the best he could expect from life. 

The rest was to be a permanent anti-climax. Small wonder, then, that 

like a retired astronaut whose days of glory are long gone, he 

constantly harked back to the past. 

The pace of the writing has increased over the course of the last 

paragraph, building up to a running, racing pace, only to be denied 

fulfilment in this last sentence which, instead of carrying us forward, as 

we expect, slows us down and carries us at a plodding pace, back into 

the past. Notice the plosive “B” sound of this sentence, its hard, 

alliterated consonants beating out the irresistible rhythm of the past 

like a heartbeat. The rhythm of these last sentences seems 

remarkably akin to the patterns of Gatsby’s life experience. Beautifully 

written, the chapter concludes appropriately, on the note with which 

the book (and Gatsby’s experiences) have been based: “the past.” 


The Great Gatsby Themes 

East v. West 

• In The Great Gatsby, the Midwest represents old, established 

American values such as the fundamental importance of hardworking 

family life. 

• It harbours a long-established moral code, passed down from 

generation to generation (see, for example, the opening of the text). 

• This small-town morality oppresses Nick after his experience of 

the First World War. 

• In an ironic reversal of the pioneering slogan, “Go West, young 

man!” the West is now seen as tame and conservative. Those with 

a taste for adventure head back to the East, the new commercial 

“frontier.” 

• The East is a place full of possibilities for commercial and financial 

speculation. 

• Opportunities for those with business in mind are rife, but the 

barriers between honest and dishonest behaviour seem blurred. 

• The moral code here, as exemplified by figures such as the 

unscrupulous Meyer Wolfsheim, appears to be based on the idea of 

whatever one can get away with being deemed acceptable. 

• Nick himself still has a sense of the old fashioned morality of the 

Midwest and finally returns there to escape the moral decadence of 

the East and to attain a sense of perspective on what has happened 

to him. 

Gatsby’s Dream 

• As a young man, Gatsby’s dream was: 

- imaginative, not merely greedy 

- largely materialistic 

- aimed to acquire the wealth and status denied him by birth 

- laudable in its desire for personal improvement: Gatsby wished 

to become a ‘Platonic conception of himself’ (evidenced by his 

practising a new signature, changing his name from Gatz to 

Gatsby, exercising care in his speech, living according to his 

detailed ‘SCHEDULE’ outlined in Chapter 9) 


Themes in The Great Gatsby



- encouraged initially by his association with Dan Cody, until 

Gatsby clearly rejected Cody’s lifestyle of drinking and 

womanising 

- changed after meeting Daisy and he became a “votarist” with a 

focused purpose: to attain the woman of his ‘incorruptible 

dream’. 

• He determined to make himself worthy of her, to the point where 

he was to ‘revalue everything in his house according to the 

measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.’ 

• The dream was always unattainable, as Daisy was never likely to 

leave the safety of her home and advantageous, if faithless, 

marriage, but Gatsby never had a realistic impression of Daisy: he 

was charmed by her ‘siren’s song’ of a voice, by her beauty and 

her money. 

The Great Gatsby as a critique of the American 

Dream 

The text could be said to criticise the American Dream in the following 

ways: 

• The view that achieving material success should bring status 

can be seen as being criticised by Gatsby’s eventual demise. 

• The idea of rewarding effort with wealth, though possibly 

desirable, is also morally debatable. 

• The archetypal story of rags to riches exemplified by Gatsby 

does not show him to be a happy, well-adjusted individual but a 

tormented, lonely, isolated façade of a man who does not really 

fit in anywhere. 

• Although Gatsby succeeds in creating wealth, he is never really 

accepted into the wealthy elite of American society, where he is 

viewed as an arriviste, a nouveau riche, and an outsider. 

• The equation of money with happiness appears to be at the 

heart of the failure of the American Dream. 

• Tom and Daisy, whilst superficially rich and successful, are 

actually unfulfilled, rootless people.


Gatsby can be seen as a model of the typical subscriber to the Dream 

because: 

• he comes from immigrant stock 


• his family was poor and lacked status 

• he wished to better himself and achieve financial success at the 

same time (although in order to achieve this he involved 

himself in a life of crime, hence the ‘foul dust’ that floated in 

his wake). 

The Great Gatsby as a critique of US Society 

The text can be read as a critique of the basic principle of capitalism, 

the idea that wealth brings fulfilment and happiness. Evidence: 

• Gatsby’s parties are wastefully extravagant, but there is no 

communal spirit to them, no real joyfulness (remember the 

woman at the piano, to whom somebody suggested she cry the 

notes of mascara dripping down her face?) The guests do not 

interact meaningfully; nobody even appears to know who the 

host is. They are consequently grotesque, an example of 

corruption and excess. 

• The area where the characters live is bordered by the wasteland 

where the workers like Wilson scramble for a living in a valley 

of ashes. Fitzgerald was clearly aware of the poignancy of this 

and the lack of fulfilment in the lives of those situated there. He 

saw this area as a constant physical reminder of the 

wastefulness embedded in the society of the East Coast of the 

US. 

• Social relationships in the East are generally unfulfilling and 

unhappy: 

- Couples are torn apart by adultery (Tom and Daisy’s 

relationship; Myrtle and Mr Wilson’s). 

- Children appear to be shuffled into the background to be 

brought up by others (Pammy, Tom and Daisy’s child). 

- Drunkenness is the norm (hence the excess at Gatsby’s 

parties). 

- People are exploitative of one another (Klipspringer seems 

to abuse Gatsby’s hospitality and yet fails to attend his 

host’s funeral).



This picture seems to suggest that this land of opportunity is rotten 

to the core. Even Gatsby, who appears to have spirit and vision, is a 

criminal. 

Time in The Great Gatsby 

The Great Gatsby is a novel that deals with time in a manner more 

typical of the modern novel published after 1970 than of a novel first 

published in 1926. It does not follow the generally straightforward 

linear narrative structure of that time. Instead, it begins with advice 

given to Nick Carraway by his father before he comes East in the 

Spring of 1922. It then operates through a series of flashbacks and 

fragmentary narratives to follow the story of Gatsby. It takes us from 

his first decisions to improve himself (which we do not discover until 

after his death), through his early efforts in this direction, through his 

romance with Daisy during the First World War, to the “present” day 

in 1922 and his attempts to recapture her affections. 

• In CHAPTER 1, Nick Carraway comes East in the Spring of 1922. 

• By the first scene at the Plaza Hotel (CHAPTER 4), the time 

scheme has been interrupted. Jordan Baker discusses events, which 

took place in the October of 1917 (Gatsby and Daisy’s romance 

then Daisy’s marriage to Tom). 

• The novel then proceeds to the reunion of Daisy and Gatsby 

(CHAPTER 5). 

• Immediately after the reunion scene (CHAPTER 6, the reunion of 

Daisy and Gatsby), the narrative loops back in time to James Gatz 

as a youngster, detailing his relationship with Dan Cody. 

• Still in CHAPTER 6, the narrative then switches to Gatsby’s party 

in the “present” day. 

• After the party (CHAPTER 6), the narrative takes us back in time 

to Louisville one autumn night when Daisy becomes the 

embodiment of Gatsby’s dream, revealing the intensity of his 

vision. 

• CHAPTER 7 moves from a hot day in 1922 into town, to the Plaza 

Hotel, to the tragic journey home and Myrtle’s death. 

• On the same night chronologically, the narrative jumps backwards 

to Gatsby’s first meeting with Daisy in her house (CHAPTER 8); it 

then revisits Louisville in the Autumn of 1918, after Daisy’s 

marriage to Tom.


• In CHAPTER 9, figures from Gatsby’s past (including his father) 

flicker through the narrative, their stories constituting a veritable 

flashback. 

In this way, the narrative creates mystery around the persona of 

Gatsby. He is never fully revealed to us until the end of the tale. We 

never see him fully until his death has taken him from us. We see him 

in snapshots only, elusive fragments that serve to magnify his mystique 

whilst leaving us eager to find out more. Fitzgerald can be seen, then, 

to handle the narrative in a masterly fashion in order to keep the reader 

always attentive for a glimpse of this most fascinating character. The 

use of an INVOLVED NARRATOR helps preserve this mystique, 

whereas an omniscient narrator may have had to reveal all of Gatsby’s 

secrets at once, destroying the delicate balance of the narrative. 


The Great Gatsby The Use of Imagery 

The Use of Imagery 

Light and Darkness 

Gatsby is associated with light: 


• Moonlight, the green light, starlight, the electric lights of his 

house lit up “like the World’s fair”. 

• The light seems to symbolise his dream. 

• Natural light seems to suggest idealism. 

• Electric light could be said to represent his materialistic streak, 

his determination to achieve his dreams despite all costs. 

Daisy is associated with twilight or darkness: 

• She snaps out the candles in Chapter 1. 

• She is turning out the lights in her house as Gatsby watches in 

Chapter 8. 

• ‘Throughout this twilight universe, Daisy began to move again 

with the season.’ 

• This could represent the absence of the imaginative fire that we 

see as such a vital part of Gatsby’s personality. 

• After his reunion with Daisy, there are fewer references to 

lights and Gatsby, as though anticipating the death of his dream 

at her hands. 

Religion 

• Gatsby is described as a ‘Son of God’, about his father’s 

business of Empire-making, in an almost blasphemous 

metaphor, which sees the transference of the idea of God-like 

creation to the idea of the creation of wealth. 

• Gatsby is often seen in a series of poses or stances, which 

sometimes appear remarkably studied and martyr-like, such as 

his nonchalant stance at the chimney breast when Daisy visits 

Nick’s house. ‘If personality is a series of unbroken gestures, 

then there was something gorgeous about him…’



• Money is the new God in this text. However, there is an 

acknowledgement that the old God still looks down over the 

inhabitants of the Eggs from the eyes of T.J.Eckleberg in the 

Valley of Ashes. ‘God knows what you’ve been doing . . . you 

can’t fool God . . . God sees everything’, Wilson repeats, before 

Michaelis reassures him with the cool voice of capitalism, 

‘That’s just an advertisement.’ 

Colour 

Daisy is associated with white, the colour of the dress in which we 

first see her, and silver, representing her wealth. She drives a ‘white 

roadster’ and is described as ‘gleaming like silver’. 

• White represents her emptiness, silver her wealth and 

sophistry. 

• Remember that silver tarnishes and white is easily sullied. 

Gatsby is associated with green, as in the green light at the end of 

the dock. 

Eyes: 

• Green is often associated with fertility, fecundity. 

• In Christian iconography, it is also associated with hope of 

eternal life. 

• Vision and the idea of faulty vision crop up many times in this 

text, maybe as a reminder of the moral blindness of the 

inhabitants of the Eggs and the Valley of Ashes. 

• Think of Owl Eyes, in the library at Gatsby’s party who, 

ironically despite being short sighted, can see the true nature of 

Gatsby more clearly than anyone else at this stage as he 

compares him to Belasco, a theatre director who tried to make 

his performances as realistic as possible. This imagines Gatsby 

orchestrating his life and affairs as a huge production to cast 

him in the best light – a very perceptive interpretation. It is this 

same character who is to be found at the end of the night with 

his car down a ditch, where it has ended up when he claims to 

be not ‘even trying’ to drive it responsibly. He finally reveals 

that it was not him driving – a case of mistaken identity 

(another bit of faulty vision) that sets the scene for the second, 

more tragic, accident in the text when Myrtle Wilson is killed 

and it is presumed that Gatsby was driving the car.



• The eyes of T.J.Eckleberg have already been mentioned in 

connection with God and religion. 

The references to drunken incidents such as the party at Myrtle’s 

and the later one at Gatsby’s radiate confusion and faulty vision as 

a result of too much drink. It appears that the whole of this society 

is suffering from the effects of faulty vision, implying a wide 

spread immorality and a failure to distinguish the truth.

The Great Gatsby Exam Questions and Suggested Plans 

Exam Questions and Suggested Plans 

Question 1 

The Great Gatsby is as much Nick Carraway’s story as it is Jay 

Gatsby’s. How far do you agree? 

In your answer, you should consider the following points: 


• the extent to which each of these two protagonists can claim to 

be the major character of the novel 

• Nick as engaged narrator and Nick as a man who constantly 

effaces himself 

• Nick’s pale and self-effacing character in contrast to Gatsby’s 

flamboyant and larger than life character 

• Gatsby’s story as a kind of fairy tale 

• Gatsby as mysterious, fascinating, romantic and dazzling with 

his splendour and colour 

• Gatsby as a man who has invented his own character 

• Nick’s assessment of Gatsby and how it is that which makes 

him great for us 

• how Nick controls reader’s reactions to Gatsby and in the end 

adjusts our sympathies to be in line with his own 

Consider how, all the way through the novel, Nick has been 

“creating” and interpreting for us the story of a man who created 

himself. Look at the effect of this on the reader and our 

engagement with the shattered dream.

The Great Gatsby Exam Questions and Suggested Plans 

Question 2 

Fitzgerald wanted to write a book that was “intricately patterned”. 

How well does The Great Gatsby fulfill this aim? 

In your answer you should consider the following: 

• Recurrent colours/images 

• Story-line patterns 


• Characters- all are really Western, they move East then return 

West 

• Themes - US society and the American Dream, love and 

relationships 

• Events - these are very carefully put together to weave an 

intricate pattern 

• Gradual build up of characters 

• Plot construction pattern 

• Social events played off one against the other 

• Weaving in of narrator 

• The role of time 

• Clothes and their ‘ineffable gaudiness’ 

• Heat 

• Geography

The Great Gatsby Further Exam Practice Questions 

1. “Fitzgerald presents the reader with a decadent world thinly 

veiled by glamour and the power of wealth”. How far do you 

agree with this view of The Great Gatsby? 

2. In the light of your reading of the novel as a whole, how 

effective do you find the conclusion to The Great Gatsby? 

3. Fitzgerald presents the reader with a novel that is characterised 

by individuals who cannot separate illusion from reality. From 

your reading of The Great Gatsby, explore the ways in which 

this theme of “defective vision” is developed. 

4. Consider the ways in which Fitzgerald presents Nick as being 

on a journey of self-enlightenment in The Great Gatsby. 

5. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores the 

destruction of the American Dream through the story of Jay 

Gatsby. Consider the ways in which this theme is presented in 

the novel. 

6. To what extent does Fitzgerald manipulate the sympathies of 

his readers throughout The Great Gatsby? 

7. What do you consider to be the importance of Fitzgerald’s use 

of Nick as the story’s narrator in The Great Gatsby? 

8. How does Fitzgerald present women in The Great Gatsby? 

9. “The Great Gatsby is characterised by images of constant 

movement and restlessness.” Consider how Fitzgerald achieves 

this throughout the novel. 

10. The world of The Great Gatsby is one dominated by shattered 

hopes, dreams and ambitions. How far do you agree with this 

view of the novel? 


Further Exam Practice Questions

The Great Gatsby

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