iI. Time & Timeliness

Discussion Questions

Chapter 5 of The Great Gatsby

1. When Gatsby is finally reunited with Daisy after almost five years, the imagery of watches and clocks — and the theme of time — become increasingly prominent. For example, just before Daisy arrives, Gatsby looks at his watch and decides to go home, announcing, “Nobody’s coming to tea. It’s too late!” (85). And after Daisy does finally arrive, Gatsby leans against the mantle in Nick’s living room and nearly knocks the “mantelpiece clock” onto the floor (86).

Then, when Daisy asserts that they “haven’t met for many years,” Gatsby abruptly responds, “Five years next November” (87). And roughly an hour later, when he takes Daisy on a tour of his house, Gatsby will be described as “running down like an overwound clock” (92). Why might Fitzgerald choose to make so many references to time — to timeliness, belatedness, and bad timing — in this chapter?

2. In Chapter One, Nick was taken on a tour of Tom Buchanan’s house. In Chapter Five, Daisy is taken on a tour of Gatsby’s house. How are the two tours — and the tour guides — similar? How are they different?

II. Dream vs. Reality

3. When, after five years of waiting, Gatsby finally reunites with his beloved Daisy, he seems oddly distracted and foggy-headed. Far from focusing on Daisy herself, Gatsby seems preoccupied with the “idea” or “dream” of Daisy that he’s spent five years building up in his head (92). “Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. [. . .] Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (93). Does gaining Daisy entail losing “enchanted objects” like the green light? Does it also entail losing the enchanted object that is his idea or dream of Daisy? To what extend does getting what we want inevitably entail losing something? To what extent does it entail losing the idealized object that had initially stirred our desire? In order for the people and objects that we desire to remain “enchanted,” would we need to keep those objects at a distance? Why or why not?

4. When he is taking his guests a tour of the grounds of his mansion, Gatsby observes that Daisy has “a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (92). Reflecting on what the green light must mean to Gatsby, Nick speculates, “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever” (93). What is the light’s “colossal significance”? Why might Gatsby have cause to worry that it had “now vanished forever”?

III. New York City

5. In Chapter Four, when Nick and Gatsby were crossing the bridge into Manhattan, Nick described the city as “rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world” (68). How would you describe the language that Nick uses to portray New York City? Is his language realistic or romantic? What does Nick take the city to represent? Do you see any resemblance between Nick’s view of Manhattan and Gatsby’s view of Daisy’s green light?

IV. Gatsby’s Shirts

6. Recalling the features of Gatsby’s bedroom, Nick initially describes his neighbor’s shirts as if they were an element of the architecture, a kind of house within the house: “shirts, piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high” (92). Interestingly, however, Gatsby begins to disassemble this carefully constructed edifice, scattering the shirts into a field of pure color. “He took a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher — shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids and coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue” (92). What might his willingness to allow his stacks of expensive shirts to unravel into a “many-colored disarray” reveal about Gatsby’s personality (92)? Why does the “soft rich heap” of shirts cause Daisy to “cry stormily” (92)? Finally, why might Fitzgerald employ the rhetorical device of polysyndeton — the unnecessary repetition of conjunctions such as “and” — in phrases like “shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids and coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange”? How does the abundance of conjunctions influence the emotional tone of the passage?

Discussion Questions

Chapter 6 of The Great Gatsby

1. It is in Chapter Six that readers finally learn about Gatsby’s origins and personal history. What is Jay Gatsby’s real name? Where was Gatsby raised? What did his parents do for a living? Did Gatsby ever go to college? For how long? How did the teenage Gatsby support himself?

2. In Chapter Five, readers learned that Gatsby keeps a “large photograph” of a man named Dan Cody on the wall above his desk (93). In Chapter Six, readers learn more about Cody’s influence on Gatsby. Who is Dan Cody? What role has he played in Gatsby’s life? In what way to Gatsby’s experiences with Dan Cody amount to an “education” (101)? What does Gatsby learn from Cody?

II. Impressions of West Egg

3. Reflecting on his impressions of West Egg, Nick admits that he has “grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures” (104). Yet a few pages later, Nick describes West Egg as an “unprecedented ‘place’ that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village” (107). Why does Nick describe the neighborhood in this way? What is “unprecedented” about West Egg? How is it connected to Broadway? And what might Nick mean when he refers to the inhabitants of West Egg as being “herded [. . .] along a short-cut from nothing to nothing” (107)?

4. Nick describes Daisy as being “offended” and “appalled” by the social scene at Gatsby’s party: “She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented ‘place’ that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village” (107). After the party, Gatsby himself admits, “She didn’t like it” (109). Yet when Tom dismisses the diverse range of partygoers as a “menagerie,” Daisy responds by affirming, “At least they’re more interesting than the people we know” (107, 108). And as the Buchanans are getting into the limousine that will take them back to more exclusive East Egg, Daisy seems to be intrigued by the democratic atmosphere of Gatsby’s gala: “After all, in the very casualness of Gatsby’s party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside?” (108). Could Daisy be experiencing conflicted feelings about Gatsby’s party? How does she really feel?

III. Common People

5. When Nick, Gatsby, and Daisy sit down for dinner, Tom asks if he can “eat with some people over here” (105). After a moment, Daisy looks around and concludes that “the girl was ‘common but pretty’” (105). To whom is Daisy referring when she refers to “the girl”? What does Daisy mean when she calls the girl “common”? How does Tom’s behavior resonate with actions described in previous chapters? What does it say about his personality? And what does Daisy’s use of this word “common” say about her personality?

IV. Recover the Past?

6. At this point in the novel, it is fairly clear that Gatsby hopes Daisy will renounce her marriage with Tom Buchanan. Yet the narrator reports that Gatsby also hopes he and Daisy will “go back to Louisville and be married from her house — just as if it were five years ago” (109). Why would Gatsby hope to marry Daisy “from her house”? When Nick cautions that “[y]ou can’t repeat the past,” Gatsby responds, “Why of course you can!” (110). Gatsby’s response suggests that what he wants is not just to reclaim Daisy but to recover how their relationship had been in the past. What does this tell you about Gatsby’s character?

7. This chapter concludes with three paragraphs
that take readers back to the night when Gatsby and Daisy shared their first kiss. “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (110). What does the narrator mean when he describes Gatsby as having “wed” his “visions” to Daisy’s “perishable breath”? Why might Fitzgerald choose to include a flashback at the end of this chapter?

Homework- Read Chapter 8

Wednesday

Discussion Questions

Chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby 

I. Gatsby & Daisy: Planning a Future?

1. At the beginning of Chapter Seven, Nick receives a series of telephone calls in which both Gatsby and Daisy invite him to have lunch at the Buchanans’ house on the following day. Nick realizes that Gatsby and Daisy are planning something, and he wonders whether they’ve chosen this occasion to create “the rather harrowing scene that Gatsby had outlined in the garden” (114). At the end of the previous chapter, when Nick and Gatsby were talking in the garden, Gatsby had announced that he was going “to fix everything just the way it was before” (110). Why do you think Gatsby and Daisy have scheduled this lunch at the Buchanans’ house? What do you think they might be planning?

Are they planning to announce that Daisy wishes to end her marriage with Tom and reunite with Gatsby? Why or why not?

2. Many of chapters in The Great Gatsby are filled with symbolic weather that reinforces the emotional dynamics between the characters. Chapter Seven is filled with imagery related to the opposing temperatures of hot and cool. For example, Nick describes the weather on that day as “broiling,” “simmering,” and “the warmest [. . .] of the summer” (114). When Daisy welcomes Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby into their home, she asks Tom to make everyone a “cold drink” — then she proceeds to kiss Gatsby on the mouth (116). Returning with four glasses of “cold ale,” Tom observes that “the sun’s getting hotter every year” (118). And Daisy tells Gatsby that she loves him by announcing, “You always look so cool” (119). How do Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the weather or the temperature help to reinforce the interpersonal tensions in this chapter? Do any of the characters reveal hot tempers? What does it mean for Gatsby to look “cool”?

II. Tom Buchanan: Discovery & Confrontation

3. In this pivotal chapter, Tom Buchanan finally discovers that his wife harbors romantic feelings for Gatsby: “She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw” (119). How would you expect Tom to respond to this discovery? Would you expect him to confront Daisy about her feelings? How does Tom actually respond? Whom does he confront? What is his aim in confronting that person?

4. Why might Tom insist on driving Gatsby’s car to New York City?
When Gatsby protests that the car is low on gas, Tom responds,
“Plenty of gas. [. . .] And if it runs out I can stop at a drug-store. You
can buy anything at a drug-store nowadays” (121). What is Tom
suggesting here? How might Tom’s words amount to a subtle jab at Gatsby?

5. When he learns that Daisy may be in love with Gatsby, Tom responds by casting aspersions on what he perceives as a decline in traditional values. “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to his wife. [. . .] Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white” (130). Why might Tom make recourse to such generalizations? What do they reveal about his values? Is Tom worried primarily about losing his wife? Orisheworriedaboutlosinghiseconomic,racial,andgenderprivilege?

III. George & Tom: Parallel Situations?

6. Why does George Wilson suddenly “want to get away” (123)? What does he know? Do you detect any similarities between George’s situation and Tom’s situation? Why had Tom taken Daisy “to France for a year” (77)? As Tom Buchanan pulls away from George Wilson’s gas station, Nick states, “There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind” (125). Whom does Nick view as having a “simple mind” (125)? What is distinctive about the “confusion” of a simple mind?

IV. The Accident

7. When Tom and Gatsby are arguing, Nick suddenly remembers that it is his birthday and that he has just turned thirty. Realizing that his thirties will bring a “thinning list” of friends and “thinning hair,” Nick is not initially enthusiastic about the “menacing road of a new decade” (135). Yet as Jordan rests her head upon his shoulder, Nick feels reassured and concludes, “So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight” (136). What is ironic about that sentence?

8. Toward the end of Chapter Seven, readers learn that Myrtle Wilson ran out into the road and was “instantly killed” (13)? How was Myrtle killed? Who is responsible for her death? Why might Fitzgerald describe Myrtle’s “left breast” as “swinging loose like a flap” such that there was “no need to listen for the heart beneath” (137)? How is this automobile accident similar to and/or different from accidents described in previous chapters?

9. When Nick asks whether Daisy was driving the car that killed Myrtle, Gatsby answers, “Yes, [. . .] but of course I’ll say I was” (143). And at the very end of the chapter, Gatsby stands alone in what’s described as a “sacred [. . .] vigil” outside the Buchanans’ house, ready to intervene if anything should happen to Daisy. Why might Fitzgerald depict Gatsby as being willing to sacrifice himself in order to relieve others from paying for their sins? Does his willingness to sacrifice himself make Gatsby a more sympathetic and likeable character? Does the author construct his title character as a Christ figure? Why or why not?

Homework- Finish the book!

Thursday and Friday

I. First Encounters

Discussion Questions

Chapter 8 of The Great Gatsby

1. Gatsby refers to Daisy as “the first ‘nice’ girl that [he] had ever known” (148). What does Gatsby mean when he refers to Daisy as a “nice” girl? When he had come into contact with such people in the past, Gatsby felt that he was separated from them by an “indiscernible barbed wire” (148). What does he mean? Gatsby wears a military uniform when he courts Daisy. How might that be significant? Why does Nick refer to the uniform as an “invisib[ility] cloak” (149)? What does the uniform render invisible?

2. When Gatsby tells Nick about his early encounters with Daisy, he devotes less time to describing Daisy’s personality than he does to describing her house. Gatsby seems utterly enchanted by the promise that he perceives in the house: “There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors, and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender, but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year’s shining motor-cars” (148). How does this description of Daisy’s house resonate with themes or passages that you encountered in previous chapters? Why might Nick refer to Gatsby’s mansion as his “ancestral home” (154)?

3. When Gatsby kisses Daisy on her porch, he is described as being “overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves” (150). Is it true that wealth can “preserve” youth and mystery? If so, how?

II. Why Marry Tom?

4. If Daisy was in love with Gatsby, why did she choose to marry Tom Buchanan? The narrator speculates that while Daisy may have fallen in love with Gatsby, she was also attached to the comforts of stability and structure: “She wanted her life shaped now, immediately — and the decision must be made by some force — of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality — that was close at hand” (151). What does Nick mean when he suggests that Daisy wanted her life to be “shaped”? How might Tom Buchanan’s “wholesome bulkiness” amount to a shaping agent? Does Daisy’s decision to marry Tom make sense to you? Why or why not?

5. When Gatsby is pondering whether Daisy could have ever loved Tom Buchanan, he admits that she “might have loved him just for a minute, when they were first married” (152). He then qualifies this admission by saying, “In any case, [. . .] it was just personal” (152). What might Gatsby mean when he says that Daisy’s love for Tom was “just personal”? In what sense is the love between Daisy and Gatsby more than just personal?

III. Nick’s Perspective on Gatsby: Beautiful or Damned?

6. One of the last things that Nick says to Gatsby is “They’re a rotten crowd. [. . .] You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (154). Nick relates that this “was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end” (154). Have you gotten the sense that Nick “disapproves” of Gatsby? Why or why not? How would you describe Nick’s feelings toward Gatsby?

7. After giving Gatsby the compliment described above, Nick thinks back to a moment when Gatsby stood upon his marble steps waving goodbye to the guests departing from his party. In a single astonishing sentence, Nick captures the duality of corruption and incorruptibility at the heart of Gatsby’s character: “The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at his corruption — and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible dream, as he waved them good-by” (154). Should readers interpret Gatsby as a “corrupt” character who accumulates his wealth largely through organized crime and bootlegging? Or should readers interpret Gatsby as an “incorruptible” character whose motivating purpose of courting Daisy renders him pure, innocent, and honorable?

IV. The Swimming Pool

8. As early as Chapter Five, Gatsby had suggested to Nick that they should “take a plunge in the swimming-pool.” Gatsby admits, “I haven’t made use of it all summer” (82). Although Chapter Eight takes place several weeks later, Gatsby tells Nick that he’s still yet to make use of the pool: “You know, old sport, I’ve never used that pool all summer?” (153). Why might Fitzgerald repeatedly invoke Gatsby’s failure to “make use” of his own pool? For whose enjoyment was the swimming pool installed in the first place? Was it installed primarily for its use-value? Why might it be significant that Gatsby never makes use of it?

9. When compared with the gruesome death suffered
by Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby might be said to enjoy a “good death.” Whereas Nick had described Myrtle’s body as having been “ripped [. . .] open” by the speeding Rolls Royce, he describes Gatsby’s body as being all but completely unperturbed by the bullet from George Wilson’s gun (144). The only trace of violence is a “thin red circle in the water” (162). Even after he has been shot, Gatsby continues to recline on the inflatable mattress in the middle of his pool, enjoying the warm sunlight and quiet serenity of an autumn afternoon. Why might Nick describe the scene of Gatsby’s death as if it were tranquil, almost beautiful? Why might Fitzgerald give his title character a good death?

I. Terminal Absences

Name: ________________________

Discussion Questions

Chapter 9 of The Great Gatsby

1. When Nick telephones the Buchanans to tell Daisy that Gatsby has been killed, he learns that Daisy and Tom have already left town (164). Why does Daisy end up staying with Tom? Why is Gatsby unable to win her over? What do Gatsby’s experiences teach us about the status system within social worlds like East Egg?

2. The only people who attend the funeral at Gatsby’s house are Nick and Gatsby’s father, Henry Gatz. When Nick shares this information with Owl Eyes, the man responds, “Why, my God! [T]hey used to go there by the hundreds” (175). Why might Nick devote so much attention to the attendance at Gatsby’s funeral? How might it help to save Gatsby’s image, re-casting him in a different light?

II. Gatsby’s Parentage: Henry C. Gatz

3. While standing in the hallway of his son’s mansion, Henry Gatz reaches into his wallet and pulls out a photograph of that same mansion. The photograph is described as being “cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands” (172). Nick reflects that Mr. Gatz “had shown it so often that I think it was more real to him now than the house itself” (172). Is it odd that Mr. Gatz seems more absorbed by his photo of Gatsby’s house than by the house itself? Do Mr. Gatz’s actions reveal any resemblances between father and son?

4. Although the adjective “great” is used in the title of The Great Gatsby, the word appears very infrequently in the actual text of the novel. Yet in the final chapter, Henry C. Gatz uses the word “great” twice in reference to his son. First, Mr. Gatz uses the perfect conditional tense to assert that Gatsby “would have been” a great man: “If he’d of lived, he’d of been a great man” (168). Then, when looking at his son’s list of resolves, Mr. Gatz asserts, “Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always great for that” (173). Do you think readers are supposed to view Jay Gatsby as “great”? Why or why not?

III. Daisy as Cipher?

5. In the last chapter of The Great Gatsby, Nick describes a series of brief encounters with many of the main characters. For example, he meets with Jordan Baker in order to formally end their relationship. He runs into Tom Buchanan and learns that Tom told George Wilson who owned the yellow “death car.” These encounters serve to update readers about what’s been happening with each character while also generating a sense of closure. However, the one character who is conspicuously absent from the last chapter is Daisy Buchanan. Why? To what extent does Daisy remain elusive — unknown and unknowable — throughout the entire novel?

6. Would you categorize Daisy as a relatively flat, two-dimensional character who is depicted
without much psychological or emotional depth? Or would you categorize her as a complex, three-dimensional character whose motives and internal conflicts are apparent to readers? In a
letter to editor Max Perkins, Fitzgerald declared that he had done a better job of fleshing out the character of Myrtle Wilson than that of Daisy Buchanan. Might the author have needed to leave Daisy’s character under-developed? Why or why not? Is it possible that Fitzgerald constructed Daisy as a kind of hollow cipher or gravitational void at the center of the novel? How might Daisy’s silence reflect the oppression of women in the 1920s? How might her elusive personality reflect her capacity as a projection screen for the fantasies of male characters?

IV. The National Mythology: Defining “America”

7. Henry Gatz shows Nick a daily “schedule” and a list of “general resolves” that Gatsby wrote out for himself when he was an adolescent (173). Fitzgerald’s inclusion of Gatsby’s schedule alludes to the daily schedule included in what is widely recognized as the archetypal narrative about an American self-made man: Benjamin Franklin’s The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin(1793). Although his parents could only afford to send the young Benjamin to school for two years, Franklin’s industrious work ethic and self-discipline enabled him to transform himself from a poor child into a prosperous writer, publisher, and political philosopher. Why might Fitzgerald have decided to include this allusion in the novel? How does it help to frame Gatsby as an exemplary figure?

Does Fitzgerald’s novel celebrate or critique the notion of the American self-made man? What is the novel’s verdict on the American Dream? How might Fitzgerald’s novel amount to commentary on the notion that America is a land of opportunity where anyone can rise from rags to riches?

8. On the last page of the novel, Nick widens the scope of his narrative by comparing Gatsby’s feelings for Daisy with the feelings that Dutch sailors must have experienced upon discovering America (180). He refers to the discovery of America as “the last time in history” when man came “face to face” with “something commensurate to his capacity for wonder” (180). Why does the narrator draw this comparison? What is his point? Do the final paragraphs amount to a celebration of humanity’s “capacity for wonder” (180)? Or do they suggest that our capacity for wonder will inevitably lead to disappointment?

V. An Honest Narrator?

9. In Chapter Three, Nick declared himself to be “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (59). In Chapter Nine, however, Jordan suggests that she had been wrong to suppose that Nick was “an honest, straightforward person” (177). Do you take Nick to be an honest and forthright person? Has he been a reliable narrator? Can you think of any ways in which he may distort the truth?

10. On his last night in West Egg, Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house and finds “an obscene word” scrawled on the otherwise white steps (179-180). Nick reports that he “erased” it (180). What do you make of this action? Could it have any symbolic significance? Could the author be suggesting that his narrator has been engaged in a broader campaign to erase any language that would disparage Gatsby’s character?

Homework- No Homework. Study for test .