The Great Gatsby Ch. 5 Reading Journal

The Great Gatsby: Chapter 5 (pp. 81-96)

Summary:

One night, Nick is arriving at his house when he sees Gatsby’s house glowing really brightly, Gatsby then comes over and Nick confirms he will invite Daisy over.  The day Daisy came over was very rainy and Gatsby was a complete wreck; he hadn’t slept, he was removed, confused, and very nervous.  The two were waiting in Nick’s house when Daisy arrived.  Gatsby had disappeared and later knocked on Nick’s door soaking wet.  Gatsby and Daisy remembered each other but were very awkward and embarrassed with each other, Nick stepped out of the room for half an hour and when he returned Gatsby was glowing and Daisy was crying tears of joy.  Their love seemed to have been revived by the time Gatsby took them on a tour through his house, he and Daisy soon forgot Nick was there so Nick quietly left so they could be alone.

Daisy Buchanan:

“Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy.” (p. 89)

Daisy Buchanan is Nick Carraway’s cousin and Tom Buchanan’s wife.  She is extremely beautiful and a voice “with its fluctuating, feverish warmth… it couldn’t be over-dreamed—that voice was a deathless song,” (p. 96).  She knows about her husband Tom’s affair yet stays with him and acts like nothing is happening in front of other people.  We find out that she and Jay Gatsby had a relationship in the past and Gatsby is still completely and madly in love with her.  In this chapter, after they meet again at Nick’s house after five years apart, they are both very nervous and embarrassed at first.  Daisy shows us pure emotions of joy that we’ve never seen from her before.  Her role in this novel varies from character to character that she interacts with.  She acts in binary opposition to Tom and, at times Jordan.  She is Gatsby’s love interest and entire reason for connecting with Nick, Jordan, and West Egg in the first place.  Without Daisy, there would be no story.

Significant Quote:

“Possibly it occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever… Now it was again a green light on a dock.  His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.” (p. 93)

The green light has always represented Gatsby’s desire for Daisy.  He has dreamed of meeting her again for five years and that green light on the dock was the closest he’d come to her.  Now that he had been so close to her and knows what it feels like to physically be around her, he can’t possibly settle for that light again; it is too far.  He’s had a taste of what he desires and he can never see the same meaning in the green light that he had before.