Gatsby questions (pdf)

The Great Gatsby – Reading Guide QuestionsChapter 11. What aspect of the narrator’s character allows people to open up to him and confide in him?2. Where did the narrator go to college and what year did he graduate?3. What business did he come to the east to learn?4. Where did he rent a house?5. Whose mansion was next to the narrator’s house?6. Who is Daisy?7. What type of person is Tom? How is he described?8. How does Daisy talk to people? Why does she talk like that?9. Who called Tom during dinner?10. Why did Daisy hope her daughter would be a fool? Why is that the best thing a girl can be in world?11. Who is Jordan Baker?12. What does Daisy mean when she says “white girlhood” (19)?Chapter 21. Describe the valley of ashes. What type of place is it? What does the name of it suggest?2. What do Tom’s acquaintances resent about him and his mistress?3. Who is George B. Wilson?4. How does Myrtle treat George? Describe their relationship.5. What did Tom buy for Myrtle?6. How did Myrtle react when Mrs. McKee complimented her dress? How does she act when talkingabout ordering the boy to get ice?7. What is significant about the fact that Tom claims he can’t leave Daisy because she is Catholic and can’tget divorced? What does this life tell us?8. What did Myrtle find out about George after she married him?9. How did Tom react when Myrtle was talking about Daisy? What does this tell us?Chapter 31. What preparations go into Gatsby’s summer parties?2. “People were not invited – they went there.” (41) What does this say about Gatsby and his parties?3. Who did Nick run into at the party?4. What is the gossip about Gatsby?5. “I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.” (48) Explain.6. Where did Gatsby go to college?7. Did Gatsby interact with any of the party guests? What did he do during his own party?8. What does the accident after the party tell us about the people attending the party?9. What is Jordan’s biggest flaw?10. “Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply.” (58) Explain.Chapter 41. What is the new gossip about Gatsby?2. What is the point of Nick listing all of the guests who came to the parties?3. What does Gatsby call Nick?4. “He [Gatsby] was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movementthat is so peculiarly American – that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting inyouth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games.” (64) Explain.5. Does Nick believe what Gatsby says about his history? Explain.6. Why does Gatsby show Nick the medal he received and the picture of him at Oxford?7. Who is Mr. Wolfsheim? What does he do?8. How did Gatsby act when he met Tom?

9. Explain Gatsby and Daisy’s history.10. Why did Daisy want to cancel her and Tom’s wedding?11. How do we know that Tom has always been unfaithful to Daisy?12. Explain why Jordan says that it wasn’t a coincidence for Daisy and Gatsby to live near each other.13. What does Gatsby want Nick to do?Chapter 51. Why did Gatsby offer to get Nick involved in his ‘side business’?2. Why did Daisy think that she shouldn’t bring Tom to tea?3. What was the mood when Gatsby, Daisy, and Nick were first together in the living room?4. What was the mood when Nick returned to the living room after Gatsby and Daisy had been alone?What do you think they talked about?5. What does Gatsby say about buying his house? How does that confuse the issue of how he got hismoney?6. What was the green light across the bay?7. Why was Daisy crying over Gatsby’s beautiful shirts?8. Who is Klipspringer?9. “It was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air.” (95) Explain.Chapter 61. Why did the reporter come to Gatsby’s door?2. What was Jay Gatsby’s real name?3. Explain Dan Cody’s relationship with Gatsby.4. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception ofhimself.” (98) Explain.5. List three jobs that Gatsby had when he was a teenager, before he met Dan Cody.6. If Gatsby never saw the money that Cody left him, how did he get his money?7. Gatsby told Tom that he knows Daisy. How did Tom seem to react to this?8. What did Gatsby introduce Tom to people as? Why did he do this? What does this tell us about Tom?9. How did Daisy react to the West Eggers at Gatsby’s party? What does she think about them?10. What does Gatsby ultimately want from Daisy?11. How did Gatsby react when Nick told him, “You can’t repeat the past?” (110)12. What did Gatsby know would happen the first time he kissed Daisy? Explain.Chapter 71. Why did Gatsby hire a completely new house staff?2. Nick refers to the harrowing scene in the garden with Gatsby. What is he talking about?3. How did Gatsby react to Daisy’s daughter? Why?4. What realization did Tom come to while they were at lunch? How did he come to this realization?5. What does Gatsby mean when he says that Daisy’s voice “is full of money”?6. What other realization did Tom come to while he was in the car? How did he feel?7. Why is Wilson planning on moving west?8. How did Myrtle feel while she was watching from the window? Why did she feel this way?9. Explain how Gatsby got the picture of himself at Oxford if he never graduated from there.10. “I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him thatI’d experienced before.” (129) Explain.11. Does Daisy support what Gatsby says when he tells Tom that she never loved him? Explain.12. “Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing– and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all.” (132) Explain.13. What truth came out about Gatsby? How did he make his money?14. What is relevant about it being Nick’s thirtieth birthday?15. Who did Tom think killed Myrtle?

16. Why was Gatsby waiting in the bushes outside of Tom and Daisy’s house?17. What is the truth about Myrtle’s death?18. “They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or ale – and yet they weren’tunhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybodywould have said that they were conspiring together.” (145) Explain.Chapter 81. Why wouldn’t Gatsby go away for a while to avoid getting arrested for murder?2. In what way did Gatsby take advantage of Daisy when they were together 5 years ago?3. Why was their “a quality of nervous despair” in Daisy’s letters to Gatsby? Explain.4. Why did Gatsby go to Louisville when he returned from Europe?5. Why did Nick miss the first few trains to work?6. “They’re a rotten crowd, you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” (154) Explain this.7. How did Nick feel about Gatsby?8. What did Wilson know about Myrtle’s death?9. Why did Myrtle run into the street the night she died?10. What does the billboard of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg (Owl Eye’s) symbolize?11. Trace Wilson’s movements from when he left the garage to when he got to Gatsby’s house. How did hetravel? What was the breakdown of time?12. What did Gatsby decide to do that afternoon? Why?13. What was Gatsby waiting for all afternoon?14. What alerted Gatsby’s staff that something was wrong?15. What happened to Gatsby and Wilson?Chapter 91. Why was Nick responsible for Gatsby and in charge of making all the arrangements?2. What happened when Nick called Tom and Daisy?3. Nick says he “began to have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and me againstthem all.” What does this mean? Explain.4. What excuse does Klipspringer have for not making it to the funeral? Why did he call Gatsby’s house?5. What won’t Mr. Wolfsheim come to Gatsby’s funeral? What is his rule for friendships?6. How did Henry C. Gatz feel about his son Gatsby? Explain using details from the book.7. Who came to Gatsby’s funeral?8. “Why, my God! They used to go there by the hundreds…The poor son-of-a-bitch.” ( 175) Thoroughlyexplain this quote.9. Why does Nick reminisce about the mid-west? What is the point of this passage?10. Why did Nick decide to move back to the mid-west?11. What does Jordan mean when she tells Nick that she met another bad driver?12. How does Nick react to Tom when he runs into him a few weeks later?13. What was it that Nick had guessed about the afternoon that Wilson killed Gatsby?14. What does Nick say about Tom and Daisy? Explain what he means.15. What did the green light represent to Gatsby?16. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (180) Explain.