Gatsby JournalChapters 4 - 5

Chapter 4 - Summary Gatsby tells Nick about his past. Gatsby’s tells lies mixed with truth. Gatsby gets flagged down by a policeman and

waves a white card which gets him off. Gatsby and Nick go to lunch; Nick meets Gatsby’s

friend, Meyer Wolfshiem. We learn Mr. Wolfshiem is a gambler / man who fixed the 1919 world series.

Wolfshiem tells Nick more about Gatsby. He (Wolfshiem) made Gatsby into the what he is today.

Background information on Daisy and Gatsby – how they knew each other before Gatsby went to war

Chapter 4 - Vocabulary

punctilious labyrinth disconcerting incredulous olfactory haughty somnambulat

ory denizen

Chapter 4 – WolfshiemWolfshiem

Quote – pages 77, 78Describe himWhat is Wolfshiem’s role in the novel?

Chapter 4 - Quote “Fixed the World’s Series?” …. The idea

staggered me. I remembered fo course that the World’s Series had been fixed in 1919 but if I had thought of at all I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain. It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people – with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.

Chapter 4 - Quote About six weeks ago, she heard the name

Gatsby for the first time in years. It was when I asked you – do you remember? – if you knew Gatsby in West Egg. After you had gone home she came into my room and woke me up and said “What Gatsby?” and when I described him – I was half asleep - she said in the strangest voice that it must be the man she used to know. It wasn’t until then that I connected this Gatsby with the officer in her white car.

Sightings Time-table – “This schedule in effect July 5th,

1922” (65) “At nine o’clock one morning late in July –

(68) Car – It was rich cream color, bright with

nickel, swollen here and there …. Green leather …. (68)

White card (flashes at police) –( 72) Wolfshiem’s cufflinks – (77) She was dressed in white … little white

roadster (79)

Chapter 5 - Summary Nick phones Daisy and invites her to tea. She

comes and Gatsby comes over for a meeting. Gatsby is incredibly nervous, but excited. He

has waited five years for this encounter. Daisy and Gatsby reconnect. He shows her his

house and all his possessions. Gatsby is convinced that Daisy will love him again, just as she had five years before

Chapter 5 - Vocabulary

HarrowedVestigePompadourNebulousColossal

Chapter 5 - Character

Gatsby or

Daisy

Chapter 5 - Sightings “Two o’clock (86) Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver, shirt, and gold

colored tie (89) Clock on mantlepiece (91) Daisy’s voice - Exhilarating ripple of her voice was

a wild tonic in the rain Overwound clock (97) Gatsby’s shirts – all colors Green light that burns at the end of the dock (98) I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating,

feverish warmth because if couldn’t be over-dreamed – that voice was a deathless song. (101)

Quotes Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was

reclining against the mantlepiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantlepiece clock …… his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place. (91)

Quote He had passed visibly through two states

and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock. (97)

Quote Possible it had occurred to him that the

colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on the dock. His count of enchanged objects had diminished one by one. (98)

Last Quote … the expression of bewilderment had

come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. (101)