Chapters 5 and 6 Discussion
1. Explain the significance of the following symbols/ characters (with quotations to support):
· Weather: The weather symbolizes the emotions of the characters throughout this section. For example, when Daisy and Gatsby reunite at Nick’s house, it is pouring outside. The characters at first are quite uncomfortable, even miserable: “[Gatsby] was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes” (91); “tense unhappy eyes” (92); “‘This is a terrible mistake’” (92); “While the rain continued it had seemed like the murmur of their voices, rising and swelling a little, now and then, with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within the house too” (94). When Daisy and Gatsby become closer as time passes, the weather clears up again, and the characters reflect this change: “He literally glowed…a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room” (94); “When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man” (94); “her dress gleamed in the sunlight” (95). There is more hope and joy in their interactions now, and the weather demonstrates the more optimistic atmosphere.
· Green Light: “‘If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,’ said Gatsby. ‘You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.’ …Possibly 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 a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (98). This light once symbolized his dream of getting Daisy back, but now seems to only be a light as he now “has” Daisy with him. Before, the light was far away from him, and the first time he is introduced is when “he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way…he was trembling” (26). His dream is closer than ever to being achieved.
· Dan Cody: Cody was Gatsby’s mentor of sorts, who taught him how to be a man and make something of himself (in the American Dream way): “And it was from Cody that he inherited money—a legacy of twenty-five thousand dollars. He didn’t get it…He was left with his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man” (107). Cody helps Gatsby become a new person, and gives him a fresh start from his past as James Gatz. Instead of being trapped by his former circumstances, Gatsby is now able to make something of himself with the help of this “teacher.”
· Dreams: Gatsby has been striving for the last five years to get Daisy back, and in those five years, he had been pursuing a woman who was more like a dream—stuck in the past, and alive only in the way that a fantasy can be, unchanged and idealistic: “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…No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (101). To Gatsby, Daisy exists primarily as a dream, until he sees her again after five years. Will the dream version of Daisy compare to the real Daisy, five years later?
2. What does the reader learn about Jay Gatsby in these chapters? How does this new information change your perspective on Gatsby?
Gatsby was born as James Gatz to poor and unsuccessful farmers in North Dakota (104). This humble upbringing is quite different than the persona that Gatsby has created since then—a wealthy, successful man of supposedly proper parents and formal education (Oxford). We now know that Gatsby has lied about himself, in addition to the gossip and rumors circulating about him. It isn’t until later that Nick even finds out the truth, but he tells the readers the truth at this point so that we won’t be confused (107). After leaving Cody’s boat, Gatsby apparently owned some drug stores (a typical cover up for bootlegging activities) and some oil businesses. Gatsby now seems somewhat more “real,” now that the reader has some “facts” to focus on about the character.
3. How does the second meeting of Tom and Gatsby differ from the first? How is the second meeting significant?
Tom comes to Gatsby’s house (still unaware of who he is in connection to Daisy), and Gatsby now has the upper-hand. He entertains the guests in a polite manner, although Tom is still quite gruff. When Mr. Sloane’s female acquaintance invites Gatsby to dinner, he doesn’t realize that she was merely being polite; instead, he assumes the invitation is true, and eventually is “stood up” at the door. This event highlights the differences between East Egg (old money) and West Egg (new money): in East Egg, cruelty is masked by “formal politeness,” whereas in West Egg, people seem to be more open/ casual/ welcoming. Tom snobbishly and hypocritically looks down on Gatsby for his not understanding the social conventions: “‘I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish’” (110).
4. What does Gatsby seem to believe about time? Include at least one symbol of time from this section. How is time important?
Gatsby believes that he can stop time, and revert back to his past with Daisy: “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she had obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago…He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers. ‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’ ‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’… ‘I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before’…He talked a lot about the past and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…” (116-117). To enhance the reader’s understanding of Gatsby’s idea of stopping and rewinding time, Fitzgerald uses a broken clock as a symbol right when Daisy and Gatsby reunite—“His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy who was sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a stiff chair” (91).
5. Find two quotations that explain how Gatsby feels about Daisy, and explain each.
1. Gatsby has turned Daisy into more of a dream than a reality, and when she becomes real, everything else becomes nearly artificial/dream-like: “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in the house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs” (96-97).
2. Everything that Gatsby does is for Daisy, and for them to be able to return to their past together: “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. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon like a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete” (117). When they were together years ago, she was the one thing that could give him a sense of being complete and content—since her absence, he has yet again been roaming and searching for fulfillment and that sense of completion.