Chapter+7

By: Taylor S. and Sara F.

Chapter 7 is very dramatic. It’s when Tom and Gatsby have a conflict over Daisy. In the previous chapters, there have been hint about Gatsby’s criminal activity, and in this chapter, it is confirmed when Tom’s suspicions about Daisy and Gatsby are found to be correct. Gatsby and Daisy can no longer hide their love for one another. It seems that Gatsby cares more about Daisy than she cares about him. At the end of the first chapter, it is shown that Gatsby is standing in the dark pining for Daisy. Chapter 7 is the chapter in which Daisy, Gatsby, Nick, Jordan, and Tom go to town, and Daisy leaves with Gatsby because she is upset about Gatsby and Tom’s confrontation. When Tom, Jordan, and Nick come home later, they find that Myrtle’s been killed. Myrtle was Tom’s mistress. Tom is outraged to learn of his wife’s affair, but he clearly does not think he was doing anything similar to that with Myrtle. Daisy actually hit Myrtle and killed her, but Gatsby says he’ll take the blame. This illustrates his nobility and his deep love for Daisy. This also defines his character.
 * __Chapter 7:__**

""her voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it...High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl..."

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Theme/Main Idea:**__ The main idea of this chapter is the carelessness of this time period. People are thought to proceed blindly in their endeavors and elude their problems. As seen in the picture above, dancing was a way to relieve stress and all your troubles. This was a time when people didn't care about how much money mattered and spent it on whatever they wanted. They didn't have a care in the world. You could be reckless and not suffer the consequences. The theme of this chapter is shown in Gatsby-how he throws lavish dinner parties for no reason and lives in a mansion with servants to impress Daisy. A person's reputation during this time was based on how much money they had and how many things they bought with that money. This and also blindness. People seem to turn their heads to everything that doesn't please them. Therefore, as it says in question four, "people are not happy...and yet, they are not unhappy". We are shown that through the perseverance of the American Dream (theme in previous chapters) people attain wealth, and with that wealth they acquire power. The only thing that people during this period care about is material things. This is seen in their fancy cars and big houses. Carelessness is obvious in the way that we see Gatsby throw parties week after week for no reason.

"It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night-and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over."
 * 1. Compare Trimalchio, the hero or protagonist of The Satyricon, to Gatsby.**

Trimalchio is correlated to Gatsby in the ways that he was recently wealthy and known for throwing lavish dinner parties. Gatsby, like Trimalchio, acquired power and wealth through his perseverance. In this way, Gatsby and Trimalchio are the same. Gatsby and Trimalchio differ in the way that Trimalchio is happy with his life, where Gatsby is not. In the book, it seems as though Gatsby is happy, but he is not. His life is not complete without Daisy, but once he has Daisty, he realizes that she does not make his life whole. Daisy only thinks of Gatsby as a toy;something that will make her happy for a while, she can play with it, and then she can just forget it. The problem is Gatsby is not a toy, but Daisy is too shallow to see his deep obssession with her. During this time period, the word LOVE is used loosely. During this time period, love is defined as having someone constantly with you;it might be seen as a companion, but if you look deeper, it's as if people in this book who are thought to be loved, are used as symbols to show people that someone loves them. Daisy sees Gatsby as a material thing;something/someone she can drag around on a leash to show to people and claim him as someone who loves her.

"Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table." ""Who wants to go to town?" demanded Daisy insistently, Gatsby's eyes floated toward her. "Ah," she cried, "you look so cool." "You always look so cool," she repeated. "She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as some one he knew a long time ago."
 * 2. Trace the recurring image of eyes, and ascertain the purposes of those images. Consider blindness on any level as well as sight.**

The recurring image of eyes is supposed to remind the reader how all the characters of the book proceed in their endeavors with blindness; this blindness is similar to the blindness of Americans in their plight for industrialization. People turned their heads to things that they did not like. Like T.J. Eckleberg's eyes, everyone sees everything, but no one cared enough to do anything about it. Nick is like that ad; he sees everything and does nothing. Like the sign, he is silent. During this time period, it may have been worse to be silent than outspoken. First of all, many things were going on that could have been corrected if it were not for people not saying things. Secondly, people like Tom, could continue to do things without consequences. Then, in the story, when Myrtle was killed, no one ever knew about his affair. Bindness was very common. People didn't pay any attention to something that they didn't want to see. It would actually be like selective blindness. People only see things that they want to see.

“I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones. . . ”
 * 3. Compare the two passages below from T. S. Eliot’s [|The Wasteland] with remarkably similar ones from The Great Gatsby. Better still, find a copy of the poem and discover other passages which correspond. What do the similarities suggest?

“What shall I do now? What shall I do? I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street With my hair down, so, What shall we do tomorrow?”

and from Gatsby, Chapter 2:

“It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head.”

and from Chapter 7: “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?” cried Daisy, “and the day after that, and the next thirty years?”**

The passages are similar in the way that they both capture the real dilemma of life. These are similarities of the difficulty of making a living during the industrial age. These two passages show how no one had anything to do with the time that they had. "What shall I do now? What shall I do?" and they ran away from this problems because that's what everyone else was doing and people wanted to go along with what was in style. "rush out of the house,..." These quotes also show how Daisy's child didn't mean anything to her. She would run out of the house, without her child because she didn't not mean that much to her. There was nothing connecting anyone in this book. No love or other. Everything seemed to be done out of obligation or without any thought at all. Myrtle was obligated to stay with George because she was married. Daisy was also obligated to stay with Tom. Not just because they were married, but because they both came from a similar background; they were brought up wealthy, whereas Gatsby, in Daisy's eyes, is just a fling; something to ease he pain, something she could use. She treats Gatsby as a material thing, not a person, the entire book. He is blinded by his love for her; blinded in the way that he does not see her flaws and cannot believe when she shows him her child. He makes her out to be better than she is.


 * 4. Explain the significance of the comments: “They weren’t happy . . . and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.”**

""All right," broke in Tom quickly, "I'm perfectly willing to go to town. Come on-we're all going to town.""

This quote shows how the characters elude their problems. Cheating is something that is not taken seriously, but a suspicious look of conspiracy would be. Comments such as these show that there was nothing to live for at this time. Everything turned to ash and ended up collecting in the valley of ashes, which is where George and Myrtle Wilson lived. People couldn't make up their minds; they were very undecisive. This quote shows how nothing could please anyone, not even a lot of money. That's why Tom and Daisy could have affairs and come back to each other easily. There were no attachments. No worries. This proves the theme, carelessness. No one cared about anyone or anything else. People only cared about themselves; they were selfish. The picture described above is said to have an "air of natural intimacy" which would be thought of as strange. Everything that anybody does has no effect on them. People have no emotion or regret for any of their actions.