The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 7

Chapter seven; in which Gatsby goes to Daisy's house, the main characters all go to the Plaza hotel for an argument and Myrtle Wilson gets hit by a car.

Reader's thoughts:

• How come, in moments of drama, Nick's usual exhaustive descriptions of things, for example, his train journey to the Buchanan's house takes 21 lines to describe (in my edition), just stops? When Tom breaks Myrtle's nose, that only takes two lines. When Myrtle is hit by a car, it only takes seven words("The car...wavered tragically for a moment"). Could it be to highlight the event by making us readers read it again (blink and you'll miss it) or could it be, by leaving the event un-blurred by "flowery description", Fitzgerald wants us to see it clearly, without stopping to describe the blueness  of T.J. Eckleburg's eyes or the numerous boxes on Gatsby's car.

The heat and what it could mean:

• The day is described as "broiling", which is like coming to the boil, much like this book in this chapter.
• The heat causes Tom to block out all of the light from the Buchanan home. This could represent him shutting out all the light from Gatsby's life by staying with Daisy.
• The day gets hotter as Tom gets angrier. 
• Could it be the heat before a thunder storm?

• In this humble reader's opinion, the heat of the day that the Buchanan's, Nick and Gatsby travel to New-York is probably meant to foreshadow the "prolonged and tumultuous argument" that occurs there in the Plaza hotel.
• Another reason that it could be so hot is so that it represents the heat of the moment that Tom decided to have an affair with Myrtle and Daisy decided to have an affair with Gatsby.
• Yet another reason could be that everything seems less real in the heat-haze, and it keeps getting hotter until the evening when Myrtle is murdered by Daisy when everything gets cooler and clearer.
• Naturally, it could also represent the Buchanan's marriage, with things getting hotter and more uncomfortable as Daisy murmurs how much she loves Gatsby, Gatsby sees Daisy's daughter, who he didn't believe existed before and Gatsby and Daisy stare into each other's eyes (which apparently proves how much they love each other).

Other, non-heat related points:

• In the first paragraph, there is personification of cars. "Automobiles which turned expectantly" and then "drove sulkily away". 
• Despite "reserving judgement", Nick tells us after one glance at Gatsby's new butler that he has a villainous face. Could this be him remembering him with the knowledge that he was somehow connected to Meyer Wolfshiem, or actually what he thought at the time.
• Nick fantasises about the butler of chateau Buchanan talking on the telephone about how Tom's dead body could not be touched because of the temperature. The important thing here is that he imagines things about telephones and modern technology plays such an important role in the novel. 
• When Tom stands in the doorway, he "blocks out the space", just like Myrtle in chapter two. He is blocking out the hope for Gatsby.
• Nick, just like he was at college, is the middle man wile Tom, Gatsby and Daisy are arguing.
• The novel moves from a romantic tone to more tragic in this chapter when we realise that Gatsby's dream will never be fulfilled. I think that Fitzgerald/Nick first lets us in on this when Gatsby sees Daisy's "bles-sed pre-cious", Pammy and realises that there is more to Daisy's relationship with Tom than just love.
• When there are pauses in the dialogue during the argument in the Plaza hotel, Nick mentions them.
• The first few pages take place in the Buchanan's house. These are full of tension, just like the other time that Nick goes there and is told that Daisy thinks of everything as terrible. She also acts as though she and Tom were part of their own little secret society. Could this have anything to do with why she stays with Tom and not Gatsby?
• There is a contrast between Gatsby's politeness and Tom's rudeness. This seems to turn stereotypes on their head, as the stereotype of the criminals who made their money during the prohibition is that of being money-grabing and rude and the stereotype of the old-money millionaires is that of a paternal politeness.
• Gatsby uses the same "familiar yet unrecognisable look" as he does in chapter five.
• Gatsby offends Tom by calling him his term of endearment, "old sport".
• There is a theme of giving up in this chapter. Tom whimpers when Myrtle is murdered, George Wilson slumps and Nick says that he has had enough of all of them. The exception to this rule is Gatsby who, even after Tom won the argument and Daisy is back in the house with him, he waits outside at the end of the Buchanan's drive just in case Daisy needs help with Tom. He doesn't want to give up because his dream of running away with Daisy has failed and he has nothing else to do. If he gives up his dream, he has nothing left. Tom still has Daisy and Nick still has the Mid-West, but, like Gatsby, George has nothing left.
• Gatsby's car with Daisy driving comes out of the "gathering darkness". This MUST symbolise something! The gathering darkness of Gatsby's life perhaps, or was it just an embellishment by Nick who wanted the event to seem to forecast some major event that is yet to come in the story.

Something to remember:

•  Daisy says to Gatsby "you resemble the advertisement of the man". I presume this means the T.J. Eckleburg who looks down over the ash heaps and the story. He is always mentioned by Fitzgerald whenever anything amoral is going on, for example, when Tom and Myrtle go and have a drunken party on Sunday, the holy day.