The Great Gatsby: Chapter 8

Chapter 8
This is the chapter following the tragic events of Myrtles Death in chapter seven, in this chapter we see a very different side to all the characters as we see what they do in the face of panic and strife. Everything changes in this chapter to the descriptions of the locations to the relationships between the characters. Nick describes everything so that you get the impression that everything is a lot darker because of the previous events.
He starts the chapter of by saying how he cannot sleep and how as soon as Gatsby returns he jumps straight out of bed so go tell him that he should go away. This shows the true friendship that he and Gatsby have made, that he feels the need to protect him to tell him to go away and to show that he cares, but Gatsby of course refuses because he thinks he is protecting Daisy.
Nick describes Gatsby house with trepidation now, its like as soon as myrtle died so did the passion and life in Gatsby house “His house had never seemed to enormous to me that night as we searched through the great rooms for cigarettes……………”.
The chapter also revolves around reflection as each character reflects on their discoveries of each other and what they have come to think of each other. This is the night Gatsby tells Nick about his youth of meeting Dan Cody who changed his life and Daisy who also had an even bigger effect on his life, he tells Nick that it was because Daisy was so “nice” to him, he had never known a girl to be like this to him, and from that moment onwards he was entranced. I think it is odd that Gatsby thinks “it excited him too that many men had already loved daisy – it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading their air with shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions” I think it excites him because he has her now no-one else. But the contrast of Gatsby and Nick’s different descriptions here is important because we know that Nick thinks she’s innocent with the constant comparisons from angels and white lights around her but here we get told that she isn’t as innocent but both men still take her for what she is.
We then get another assessment of Daisy as Gatsby says “Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves” this coincides with what Gatsby says in chapter 7 “her voice is full of money” and then Nick agrees by saying “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 cymbals’ song of it… High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl……” I think this quote is important as it shows us just what daisy is like and it perfects the description of her that Nick has been longing to describes, but I find it odd that Gatsby realises this but it doesn’t bother him, he knows she is some what snobbish and full of money and arrogance but he loves her anyway. I like the way Nick uses “the Golden Girl” at the end of his sentence because the golden girl was often described for a goody two shoes who can get away with any thing, and she does, she is the reason Gatsby is dead and yet she still gets away with it, she just leaves and starts her life somewhere else. This also relates to what Nick later says about her “Through the twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season” she changes men like the seasons, a new one every few months.
Nick then describes the how like any teenager rebelling against her perfect life “Suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates with half a dozen men, and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor besides her bed” it think this is important because she has told Gatsby that she is waiting for him yet we know that she isn’t she is lying to him. She is living a life full of lies even to her herself as Nick says “And all the time something within her life was crying for a decision.” I think this is important because she’s wants to stop what she doing and lead a normal honest life but she can’t because no-one is there to do it for her.
Nick uses a lot of repetitive language throughout the novel about Tom but in this chapter it changes it becomes more romantic and a lot less violent. He says daisy needed a force of some kind to help her, and that force came with Tom, but he doesn’t use force in a bad way like he does in Chapter 6 where he forces Daisy to go Gatsby’s party, this time he uses it in a much more romantic sense, because he was the force that saved Daisy from the ennui that engulfed her. He says “There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position” I think the key word in this quote is “wholesome” because its a good word he normally uses words like “menacing” and “hulking” to describe Tom but this time he uses “wholesome” because this man who was completely different from Gatsby likes Daisy, he’s rich, he’s there and he likes her, so she leaves with him.
When Nick finally leaves Gatsby to himself Nick says “you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together…..Good bye, I enjoyed breakfast” I think for us and Gatsby this is important because it shows us that Nick really does care for Gatsby although they’ve only known each other for a few months and it shows Gatsby that he really does have one true single friend, this was the only compliment that he ever gave Gatsby and I think it was the only one he needed.
We then get the determination Of George Wilson to find his wife’s killer. Although he still partly blames himself for Myrtles death he knows that that person driving the car was responsible for it. This is a good ideology for the Chapter as it shows the determination some people are willing to put themselves through, because George comes all the way from New York with know knowledge and by the time he is in West Egg he knows that the person car was that of a man called Gatsby’s.
We then get Nicks realisation that he knows he shouldn’t have left Gatsby, coming back to the protection you should stay with someone to protect them. But it’s too late; because Gatsby told his servants to not interrupt him they couldn’t stop the death.
I think the language Nick uses at the end of the chapter is quite outlandish because he says “and the holocaust was complete” I think this is all in relation to how small the world around the people involved that summer was. Although it is stupid comparing it to the size of the holocaust.