Chapter 7 - Imaginary Journal - Daisy's Point of View

Today was an eventful day. Nick and Jay come over for lunch. Both Jay and Tom were not quite their selves. Jay didn’t seem to like my daughter. I could even say that seeing her stunned him; he was shocked. Tom, he had been acting suspicious for some time now, but today he appeared to make up his mind about whatever was bothering him, it’s like it all finally fell into place for him. Well, I do not care if he has become certain about the relationship between Gatsby and I. He has his girl up in New York, and I don’t raise my voice about it, so it is just about fair that I have a lover.

Going to New York was rather entertaining, however I cannot say the same about returning home. I’m glad that I got to ride with Gatsby, although I am curious about what they were talking about in the other car. I wish Tom hadn’t made such a fuss in the hotel and that we could’ve stayed more. Though Jay was pretty out of line there, telling Tom that I had never loved him when he doesn’t know anything about my feelings toward Tom and my life with him. He amuses me, the way he believes that everything can just go back to the way they were before.

Driving back home from New York was a scare. Hitting that woman was terrifying. I don’t know if I will ever be able to forget about it. The thing makes this whole situation worse is that the woman looked like she wanted tell me something, something that I will never know, now that she is dead.

I didn’t know how to feel about anything throughout the day, but the more and more I think of it, making up my mind becomes easier. There isn’t even a choice to make, and I don’t regret anything that happened between Jay and I, but that was all temporary, it’s not like I expected it to last. After all Tom is my husband, and we have a life together, a life that I would not want to give up. Maybe we’re not happy, but we’re not unhappy either, and that’s enough for me.

Chapter 2

In this chapter, Nick and Tom go to New York to meet up with Tom’s lover, Myrtle. To do so, they go through the valley of ashes, a place of emptiness, poverty, and desolation. The valley, located between New York and the West Egg symbolizes the moral decay hidden behind the beautiful lives lived in the Eggs. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, on an old billboard in the valley, imply that everyone is being watched and that nobody can get away with anything; they represent the eyes of God staring down on the people.

Tom, Myrtle and Nick go to the apartment Tom keeps in New York for his affair, and have a party attended by Catherine, Myrtle’s sister, and some neighbors, the McKees. Nick is repulsed by what he sees, nevertheless fascinated at the same time. These contradictions that Nick has suggest that he has not yet made up his mind about how he feels toward the Buchanans, Gatsby, and life in New York.

Tom shows a side of him that wasn’t known before in this chapter. On top of having an affair with another woman, Tom taunts Wilson, Myrtle’s husband, who has done him no harm, and violently attacks Myrtle to keep his authority over her. It is clearly seen that he has no guilt for being such an immoral person. Perhaps Tom reflects some aspects of Fitzgerald’s life, who was an alcoholic, got into fights constantly with his wife and cheated on her when she was in the hospital.

However, the fact that Nick does not once say or do anything against the affair, or that he doesn’t think about Daisy or consider her feelings about this situation makes his morality questionable.

Chapter 1

The first sentence of the book is, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my head ever since.”Nick Carraway, the narrator and self cast author of the book, establishes himself straight away as a man who respects his elders, and takes their advice, a characteristic that would not usually be expected from a young man living in New York to work in the bond business. He considers himself highly moral and highly tolerant, and reserves judgment about other people, yet has contradictions in his point of view. For example, he describes himself as tolerant and nonjudgmental person, but also views himself as morally privileged. Nick lives in a small house next to a great mansion owned by Jay Gatsby in the West Egg, home to the “new rich.” West Egg is characterized by lavish displays of wealth and poor taste. Unlike his neighbors, Nick has social connections and aristocratic pedigrees.

The other main characters, Daisy, Nick’s cousin, Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, and Jordan Baker, a competitive golfer, who we meet when Nick goes to the East Egg to have dinner with them, and Jay Gatsby are characters that are far away from in personality. Daisy is shallow, and prefers to see the world through a “single window,” the way she wants to see it. Tom is arrogant and dishonest, carries out public affairs and racist arguments. This actually shows that Tom is not completely unaware of what is going on in the world outside of them, but this is also the only mention of the black community throughout the book, when several important events are going on like the immigrations and the growing cities within cities, so the fact that he is aware does not make him care. Jordan Baker is a bored, dishonest and cynical person. We only briefly meet Gatsby, when Nick sees him standing on the lawn, reaching out to the distant green light. At this point, neither Nick, nor the reader knows the significance of the light.

 In the East Egg appearances conceal unattractive realities, as with the Buchanans’ marriage. In addition to this, Jordan is a character that tries to cover up her inner emptiness with her beauty and wealth.

The East Egg and West Egg correspond to a particular character type in The Great Gatsby. Each home to remarkable wealth, and similar in many ways, are separated only by a small area of water and the values they approve of. The East Egg is home to breeding, taste, aristocracy, while West Egg represents the flamboyant manners of the new rich. The difference in the two settings may lead to conflicts further on in the book.