Gatsby phishbowl #2: chapters 4-5
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My answer is that Gatsby knows that his peers spread all these dramatic, negative rumors about him. He tries to not let it affect his confidence and puts up a front that he doesn't care about other people's opinions of him. But this quote, “‘Well I’m going to tell you something about my life,’ he interrupted. ‘I don’t want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear’” (Fitzgerald 65) suggests that he finds quite a bit of his self confidence in other people's views of him. So getting closer to Daisy is not his only motive in telling Nick about himself, he also feels the need to clear his name.
I think people view Gatsby as this perfect, flashy, interesting person. They seem more likely to admire from a distance than to get to know him. The car doesn't blend into the New York traffic and is a new, exotic thing to talk about rather than get close to.
I think the weather not only symbolizes the shift of the mindset of Gatsby and Daisy, I think it also can relate to Nick and his understanding of the situation. Up until this point, Gatsby has been a mystery to Nick and when the rain stops and the trio go to tour Gatsby's house, the metaphorical clouds in Nick's mind clear. He begins to understand Daisy more too and notices how happy she could be with someone other than Tom. And when Nick leaves Gatsby and Daisy he steps back into the rain, leaving them as a mystery to him once more. "I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together." (Fitzgerald 122)
Why do you think Daisy started crying because she’s “never seen such-such beautiful shirts before”? Do you think that’s the real reason she started crying?
I think Daisy is crying over the shirts because Tom has never put that much effort into clothing or spent much expense on Daisy. It shows that she is partly heartbroken over her current marriage and that Tom does not put on ‘nice’ clothes for Daisy nor does he show care for her more fine interests. Daisy pretty much forgets about Tom while in Gatsby’s presence and she acts to forget him when she is not within his presence. “ “Who is ‘Tom’?” she asked innocently”(Fitzgerald 106).
"'I see you're looking at my cuff buttons.'
I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now."
“He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his 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” (Fitzgerald 116).
In Great Gatsby so far, the relationships we've seen are not quite healthy or loving, and the people in these relationships are not invested in being a good partner or keeping the relationship together. This is contradictory to Gatsby and Daisy, however, even though they're not in a relationship currently. Gatsby is obviously in love with Daisy, and we know that they have a history together as a couple. He would do anything to have Daisy with him in a relationship, and whether or not this qualifies as love, he is willing to go the extra mile for her.
For Nick and Jordan, they like each other’s company and are good friends and the relationship is more casual and convenient. "I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me" (81).
For Daisy and Gatsby, love was a long lost things between them that Gatsby is hoping to find again to brighten his life