Summer Reading Assignment

The Great Gatsby Summer Reading Assignment

Chapter 1: 1) A) Nick Carraway is both a good and bad narrator for the story. We can personally witness the events in the story as if we are actually part of the novel, but at the same time, he cannot display an accurate interpretation of what happened between Gatsby and Daisy before he met them. To fill in the blanks of information that Nick does not know about, he turns to other characters in the story (Joran Baker and Gatsby). He is too deeply involved in events and relationships. Therefore he is biased; he is drawn to be more sympathetic towards Gatsby, and negative and sarcastic towards Tom Buchanan because of Tom’s cruel attitude towards him.

B) The feeling in the Buchanan household is very quiet and a bit awkward. Nick has not seen his cousins in a very long time, and he does not know what to say to them. He also meets a woman, whom he has heard of before. He does not know how he should act in front of his family.

Chapter 2:
A) The setting in Chapter 1 is different than Chapter 2 for many reasons. In the first chapter, Nick starts off explaining an event that happened to him in the past. In the second chapter, he begins explaining what is happening in the present moment.

B) I think that Myrtle and Daisy are complete opposites in both appearance and characters. Myrtle is very curvy and she likes to get what she wants. She also is very dictated, and she always says what’s on her mind. Daisy is a very petitte woman, and very quiet. She does not do anything to disturb anyone.

Chapter 3:

A) The guests at Gatsby’s parties behaved more proper than at the other parties. The guests seem to feel more nervous and anxious around eachother at Gatsby’s parties than they seem to at other parties that they attend.
B) The contrasting things that strike Nick about Gatsby are, that he is very polite and considerate, but that he is also chooses his words very carefully before he says anything.
C) Nick falls in love with Jordan for a few specific reasons. He fell in love with her because she was not like other women in New York. He also fell in love with her because she avoided clever and shrewed men.

Chapter 4: A) The history that Gatsby and Nick share is that they were both very poor when they are young adults.
B) The trip to New York emphasizes the drug deals and alcohol deals that Gatsby dealed with when he was just starting out in New York.
C) Indications that Daisy really did love Gatsby are that she almost ran to New York to be with Gatsby. Also she was waiting for him to return from the war, but Tom got to her first.

Chapter 5:
A) Gatsby insists on showing Daisy his shirts and his mansion, because he wants to show her that he became a very succesful man. He also wants her to know that he bought his home so that he could be closer to her. He wants her to know that he still loves her. B) Gatsby’s problem that he faces as his meeting with Daisy continues is that he is very nervous. He does not know how he should act around her. He feels very anxious when he is near her, but after a bit of consulting with Nick, he feels more comfortable around her, and the meeting becomes more relaxed.

Chapter 6:
A) Gatsby was born as James Gatz, and he grew up on a North Dakota farm. Even though he attended college at St. Olaf’s, he dropped out within 2 weeks, hating the janitorial work he had to do to pay his tuition. He also worked on Lake Superior fishing for salmon and digging for clams. One day, he saw a yacht owned by Dan Cody, a wealthy copper mogul, and rowed out to warn him about a storm. The grateful Cody took young Gatz, who gave his name as Jay Gatsby, on board his yacht as his personal assistant. Traveling with Cody to the Barbary Coast and the West Indies, Gatsby fell in love with wealth and luxury. Cody was a heavy drinker, and one of Gatsby’s jobs was to look after him during his drunken moments. When Cody died, he left Gatsby $25,000, but Cody’s mistress prevented him from claiming his inheritance. Gatsby then dedicated himself to becoming a wealthy and successful man.
B) Gatsby’s party changes with the arrival of Tom. Tom goes to the party to keep an eye on his wife and Gatsby as well. During the party Tom realizes that neither of them are having a good time and they decide to leave the party early. When Gatsby realizes that Daisy has left, he becomes dissapointed that she does not enjoy his parties, so he cancels them altogether.
C) The public statement that Gatsby wants Daisy to make is that he and Daisy are still in love with eachother and that they have been having an affair. Gatsby wants Daisy to tell Tom that she is leaving him, and that she never really loved Tom.
D) Gatsby wants things to be exactly the same as they were before he left Louisville: he wants Daisy to leave Tom so that he can be with her. Nick reminds Gatsby that he cannot re-create the past. Gatsby, upset, protests that he can. He believes that his money can accomplish anything as far as Daisy is concerned.

Chapter 7:

A) Gatsby recognizes the quality in Daisy’s voice as “full of money”. He wants to be with her because she is a higher class person, and he thinks that if he were to be with her, he would also be considered a higher class. B) I think the author includes the scene at Wilson’s garage at this point in the plot to hint something will happen with either the characters, setting or both very soon. C) I) Gatsby wants Daisy to tell Tom that she never really loved him. He wanted her to tell Tom that she always loved Gatsby.

II) This presents problems for Daisy because she actually did love Tom for a while, but she does not want to hurt Gatsby.

D) Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby because she knows what Gatsby has done in the past to become rich. She also does not seem to love Gatsby more than she seems to love Tom. She wants to let go of the past. That is why she chooses Tom over Gatsby. E) Fitzgerald is trying to emphasize at the end of the chapter that Gatsby is covering up for Daisy and taking the blame for hitting and killing Myrtle.

Chapter 8: A) Daisy did not wait for Gatsby at the end of the war because, her parents did not approve of him. Also he did not have a solid social position, but Tom did, and so while Gatsby was at war, Daisy married Tom. B) I) As Nick leaves Gatsby’s house for the last time, he calls out to Gatsby saying “they’re a rotten crowd, you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”.
II) This statement is very out of character for Nick, because he had never given a compliment to Gatsby before that moment.

Chapter 9: A) When Gatsby passed away, Nick found himself as the only person who cared about what happened to him. None of Gatsby’s “friends” showed up to his funeral or even to his home to give their condolences. One of the men Nick contacts asks Nick to mail his tennis shoes. Nick gets so upset that he hangs up before the man can finish. B) Nick thinks that the East has empty values. He cannot seem to bear living across from Gatsby’s old home, so he decides to move back to the Mid-West. C) At the end of the novel, Nick realizes that both Tom and Daisy are very “careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, and let other people clean up the messes they had made”.