The Great Gatsby - Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

Here is a summary and analysis of The Great Gatsby, Chapter 7.
Finally you made it through Chapter 7! I LOVE this chapter, because this is the point of the story where it ALL. GOES. DOWN. Everything that the book has been building towards with Daisy and Gatsby and Tom and Myrtle and George…all of that comes to a head in this chapter. So it may be the longest chapter of the story, but it’s definitely the deepest, most action-packed part of the whole narrative.
The events of this chapter happen on one really hot day at the end of the summer. (By the way, do you notice how the weather often relates to the events, like all that rain in Chapter 5? Now the chapter with the most tension is also, literally, the hottest). And this chapter is normally broken down into three essential events: lunchtime, downtown, Myrtle’s death.
So…lunchtime…Daisy invites Nick and Gatsby over to her home for lunch, although it seems strange to Nick that Daisy and Gatsby want to risk having their relationship become exposed. Gatsby and Daisy have been spending lots of secret time together, but if they’re together and affectionate in front of others it will be a secret no longer. There’s an obvious tension between all the characters throughout the chapter, as so much of what each character knows goes unsaid, but at one point Daisy looks at and speaks to Gatsby in a way that Tom immediately recognizes as a sign that Daisy and Gatsby are way more than friends. And from that moment on, everyone is very much on edge, hardly in control of what they’re doing or saying. It’s also worthwhile to point out - again - that Nick has privy to Daisy and Gatsby’s secret, but has said and done nothing.
Once Tom decrees that they’re all going to go downtown, there’s a very interesting exchange between Gatsby and Nick. Remember that throughout the story Nick has continually drawn attention to the hypnotic quality of Daisy’s voice…well Gatsby puts the nail on the head when he bluntly says: “Her voice is full of money.” This really strange statement about someone’s voice indicates a great deal about the nature of dreams and beauty in this story: money lays heavily at the center of Gatsby’s conceptualization of his self-identification. If he can win the heart of the “golden girl” then he has aspired to a very lofty, rich achievement. (Now that we think about it, everything about Gatsby seems to be yellow, right? His house, his car, his flowers…yellow, yellow, yellow). This also casts a new light on how genuine Gatsby’s love for Daisy is…is it about the girl, or about money in her voice? (Come to think of it, I don’t know if there is much else to love about Daisy…)
Anyhow, the second major part of this chapter involves our characters heading into the city. Tom for some reason drives Gatsby’s yellow car, stops at Wilson’s gas station and learns that Wilson plans on taking Myrtle away. Myrtle, meanwhile, looks out the window and sees Tom in this gorgeous yellow car…(I wonder if she heard him betray her and tell Wilson he’d sell his car to him if that meant getting him the money he needed to move away…). Nick notes that Tom is noticeably flustered, as “his wife and mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control.”
When in the city, Tom openly confronts Gatsby, and the progress of their altercation has a very interesting course. First, you have to remember that one of the key differences between Tom and Gatsby is that Tom is “old money,” and he outright says that Gatsby is “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere.” The course of their conversation involves Tom essentially making a case for why Gatsby is nothing more than a crooked gangster. It turns out that Gatsby earned his money by being a front man for a bootlegging, gambling, and loan sharking syndicate. He is the gangster turned businessman. Not only that, but Tom makes Gatsby’s attempt to get Daisy to erase the past look foolish. Daisy cannot truly admit that she never loved Tom, and for Gatsby this is devastating. (In my own opinion I can’t believe how Daisy vacillates so easily in this scene between Tom and Gatsby…I mean pick a guy and stick with him, girl!) Tom exposes Gatsby for the low-life criminal he is, and even Nick looks at Gatsby and genuinely believes he had “killed a man...."
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[@Collazoo]

this chapter makes me question my choices

[@cakee1014]

thank you

[@gnattgnert]

THAnk you

[@user-cr2in8zy4t]

Thanks pal