Chapter 8

“half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams” (147)• Nick’s nightmares are just as brutal as

reality• points to the savagery of the society Nick is living in - he is getting disgusted with the events that he has witnessed.

• lack of sleep = restlessness

NICK’S INSOMNIA

• The piano is “ghostly”, there is “dust everywhere” and the

“rooms were musty, as though they haven’t been

aired for many days” • the house seems to collapse and go into disrepair along with

Gatsby’s dream. • No longer needed to lure Daisy,

and is forgotten.

GATSBY’S HOUSE

“‘Jay Gatsby’ had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice...” (148)

• Gatsby is too fragile and sensitive, a romantic at heart

• Tom and Daisy are cruel, selfish and destructive

• Tom is brutal and intimidating and physical.

• Gatsby cannot compete

GATSBY IS TOO SENSITIVE FOR THIS CRUEL WORLD

• Gatsby describes Daisy as the first “nice” girl he had ever met - suggesting that Gatsby had previous relationships with

women of bad reputation and lower social status.

• Daisy’s house was full of “ripe mystery”, “radiant activities”,

“romances that were not musty” and the “fresh breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely

withered” - everything surrounding Daisy was alive and fresh, full of promise

and potential.

GATSBY AND DAISY(148-149)

• The fact that Daisy had had many lovers and suitors excited Gatsby and made her worth the

pursuit. “He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and

echoes of still vibrant emotions” - to win an admired

and fickle woman like Daisy would truly be a feat.

• The thing that attracted Daisy to Gatsby was his uniform, and Gatsby was afraid the

charm wouldn’t last, “so he made the most of his time” and “took what he

could get, ravenously and unscrupulously”.

• At first, he didn’t seem to have feelings for Daisy; he merely wanted to see if he could succeed in seducing someone so out of his

reach. He never expected to fall in love with her.

• There was a sense of guilt early on in the relationship, since Gatsby

had taken Daisy under false pretenses and given her a false

sense of security, letting her believe that they were of the same social

class. “He had intended, probably, to take what he could get and go - but now he found that he had

committed himself to the following of a grail.”

• She vanished into her house, leaving him with nothing - she had her own life and

Gatsby felt rejected. • Perhaps, not used to rejection, Gatsby pursues Daisy not because he loves her

but because she bruised his ego and because he needs to prove to himself that

he can get anything if he works hard enough.

• like a moth, he is attracted to her status and wealth and pursues her precisely

because he shouldn’t. • for Gatsby Daisy represented not only

the American dream but also eternal past, eternal youth.

REJECTION

• After Gatsby left, Daisy became nervous and full of despair - pressured by the world to fill

a certain role. • “Daisy began to move again”,

restlessness caused her to see other men, dress in finery, stay out all night.

• She couldn’t wait for Gatsby forever. “She wanted her life shaped now, immediately

- and the decision must be made by some force - of love, of money, of

unquestionable practicality.” Tom was the force that happened to decide for her, at the right place and at the right time - she would

have taken anybody.

“He snatched 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 best, forever.” (153)

• Looks for her – thinks he could get her back if he tries hard enough

• Part of him realizes that he can’t get the innocent Daisy back

GATSBY COMES BACK FOR DAISY, BUT SHE’S GONE

“They’re a rotten crowd...you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (154)

• Even though he’s a criminal, Gatsby is a purer being than the Buchanans and Jordan – who are corrupt and

destructive.• At least Gatsby is a generous man with feelings; the

others seem selfish, petty, snobby and dangerous. • Gatsby can love, while the others are reckless, lack

emotional attachments and are concerned only with artifice and surfaces.

• these are the last words Nick speaks to Gatsby and they elicit one of Gatsby’s radiant and rare smiles.

NICK’S OPINION OF GATSBY AND THE OTHERS

• Myrtle, who always wanted to be famous, only becomes talked about after her death – “tragic

achievement”• George is distraught at the death of Myrtle; his wife was

everything to him.• Vengeance

• Assumes that Gatsby is Myrtle’s lover and the man responsible

for her death.

MYRTLE AND GEORGE

• George compares the eyes of the billboard with the eyes of God - always watching the sinners on

earth. • He told Myrtle that she couldn’t fool

God in her affair, even though she had managed to fool him for a

while. • In this society, God is money and

business and material goods.

TJ ECKLEBERG AND GEORGE

• Taking a swim in his pool for the first time, before the pool gets drained for the

winter. • Waiting for Daisy’s phone call, that will never come.

GATSBY AT THE END OF THE SUMMER

“I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no

longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single

dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque

thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world,

material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted

fortuitously about...like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the

amorphous trees.” (161)

• Gatsby’s last moments are full of resignation and disappointment.

• He comes to realize the futility of his dream and does not recognize the world, since it doesn’t match the ideal he has created in his head.

• What once was beautiful and peaceful was now grotesque, frightening and full of ghosts.

• He sees the world for what it is, a savage nature covered by an artificial cloak of pleasure and

beauty. • His world, in the last moments, is filled with brutality, rawness, and unfulfilled, dying dreams - both his and George Wilson’s, as both characters are at this point disappointed with life and fate.

LAST MOMENTS

• After murdering Gatsby, Wilson commits suicide - completing the holocaust.

• Nick describes the “movement of the water and the “gust of wind” that brushes the surface of the pool. The leaves revolving alongside the blood of Gatsby

contrast the dead body deprived of breath and movement.

• The passage juxtaposes the life of the world with the death of Gatsby pointing out the insignificance of

man - the world moves on, even when a man’s life is snuffed.

DEATH

• The movement of nature evokes the constant movement of the Buchanan house and the

restlessness of the characters. • Gatsby slowed down, rested, gave up or stopped to ponder; he took a dip in his pool and the cruel world, constantly in motion,

caught up to him and destroyed him. • There is safety in motion, both emotional and

physical. In this novel, there is no time to dwell on the past.

MOVEMENT = SAFETY