The Great Gatsby

1. The Great Gatsby Chapter Four

2. Find evidence in this chapter that: • Gatsby may be telling the truth about his past • Gatsby has powerful friends • Meyer Wolfsheim is a criminal • Gatsby didn’t want to know Tom Buchanan • Daisy didn’t get on with her parents • Daisy got over the soldier quite quickly. • Tom Buchanan’s family were very rich • Daisy didn’t want to get married • Gatsby could see Daisy’s house from his • Gatsby is afraid to speak to Daisy directly

3. Gatsby and Nick Look over the conversation Nick and Gatsby have in the car on the way to New York. As a group / individually, consider what we learn about Gatsby’s character and how Nick feels about him. Think about: • Gatsby's restlessness • His attitude towards all his objects • The information (lies?) he tells Nick about his life • Quotes which describe the way he says those ‘facts’ • Whether Nick believes him or not You must refer closely to the text and provide quotations and analysis.

4. Chapter 4 Summary • Gatsby and Nick go to New York for lunch. Gatsby tells Nick (lies?) about his past. • Nick is introduced to Meyer Wolfsheim, a gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series. • Jordan tells Nick the story of how she got to know Daisy back in Louisville. She tells him about Gatsby’s letter and about Daisy’s doubts about her marriage. • Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby wants him to invite Daisy for tea.

5. Gatsby and Nick • Gatsby’s possessions do not make him happy. He seems to get no real pleasure from the artefacts around him and seems self-consciously aware of the pretence upon which he has built his public persona. • He ‘chokes’ on his lie to Nick that he was educated at Oxford and seems burdened by an intense energy: ‘he was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand’. He seems to be aware that he could be exposed at any time. Unlike the complacent Tom, who revels luxuriously in the splendour of his castle, Gatsby seems never to be at rest with himself.

6. Gatsby and Nick • He props up his history with handy objects of authenticity such as war medal and photographs of his time at Oxford, almost as though he feels he needs evidence. • His stories are overblown, unrealistic and tinged with equal measure of fantasy and self-pity (he keeps referring cryptically to the ‘sad thing that happened to me’ and, how, when the war came, he ‘tried very hard to die in order to forget it). These unwittingly comical reflections stretch his credibility to the limit and Nick is left feeling ‘more annoyed than interested’ in the favour that Gatsby has asked him.

7. Meyer Wolfsheim • Distasteful character - Always looking around as if aware that he is a ‘wanted man’. • G reveals he is the person who fixed the World Series in 1919, therefore connecting him to characters like Jordan baker who openly cheat in order to gain privilege. His preoccupation with Gatsby’s ‘Oggsford’ education is another indicator of the premium given to Anglican values among the wealthy classes. • Wolfsheim is shown to represent the cut-throat impersonal world of big business, where the players eat each other alive. Nick is understandably disconcerted by him and his connection to Gatsby makes us question Gatsby’s ethics.

8. Meyer Wolfsheim • Nick’s perceptions of Wolfsheim are different from the view held by Gatsby. In the narrative, Wolfsheim’s reconstruction of the death of Rosy Rosenthal follows Gatsby’s account of his own history and precedes Jordan's recollection of her encounter with Daisy and the handsome young lieutenant. The placing of Wolfsheim’s tale of violence among gangsters inevitably causes sinister overtones to reverberate into the framing glimpses of Gatsby's past. • Gatsby is dually presented as a heroic soldier and innocent lover as well as hinting at his corruption.

9. Narrative Deviation At this point, Nick re-tells the story of Gatsby and Daisy’s love affair from Jordan’s point of view. He relates her words as if they were exactly as he remembers them of the October in 1917. However, can Jordan be trusted to tell the truth? We know she cheated in her golf tournament. A 2nd unreliable narrator.

10. Daisy’s Men • The letter and the necklace are important symbols of stability and status at this crisis point in Daisy’s life. As Gatsby’s letter come apart in hands ‘like snow’, her decision seems to have been made for her. Gatsby’s love is perceived as unstable, whereas Tom’s version of ‘love’ represents rock solid permanence, by virtue of its wealth. • Daisy, through choice, has become an emblem of old money. She abandons her romantic urges and embarks on a marriage which will offer her status. The others use ice to sober her up, cooling her passion for the man she loved, and they ‘hook’ her into her dress, as though hooking her into this world.