When Gatsby first meet’s Daisy he is wearing a ‘silver shirt and gold-coloured tie’ the silver and gold are closely associated with money and wealth and this illustrates how keen he is to display to Daisy how wealthy he is now. However in reality he will come across very ostentatious, lavish, garish and gaudy, not unlike his house and car. Fitzgerald builds up tension before Daisy and Gatsby meet by showing the extent of how nervous Gatsby is. One way Fitzgerald does this is by pointing out the ‘dark signs of sleeplessness below his eyes’ illustrating that Gatsby hasn’t slept due the anticipation of seeing Daisy again. Fitzgerald uses pathetic fallacy as rain appears when Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time which ominously foreshadows their relationship and Gatsby's fate.
When Daisy finally meets Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates an awkward tension between the two. Fitzgerald uses silences such as ‘for half a minute there wasn’t a sound’ and ‘a pause’ which was ‘endured horribly’ to create a difficult and detached atmosphere. Conversation between Daisy and Gatsby does not flow easily and is filled with ‘chocking murmurs’, ‘abortive attempt at a laughs’ and snippets of small talk. Gatsby then nearly knocks over a ‘defunct mantel piece clock’ in his agitated and jittery manor - '...the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously...whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place'. This represents Gatsby’s vain and clumsy attempt to stop the passage of time in order to retrieve the past. As the clock is a ‘defunct’ one it does not work and has stopped at one moment in time; just as Gatsby's life has stopped. He is trapped in the past, fuelled only by his over-elaborate dream of having Daisy as his own.
Fitzgerald uses a change of scene in chapter 5 to accompany a change in manor between Daisy and Gatsby. Gatsby's character is at its purest and most revealing when he invites Daisy and Nick over to his mansion for a tour. Gatsby forgets to play the role of the hard cold business man and Oxford graduate but shows himself to be the lovesick solider of the past. Daisy is overwhelmed and ‘admires’ his luxurious lifestyle; this is particularly displayed when Gatsby shows her his excessive and indulgent collection of shirts. Daisy’s emotions overcome her she sobs ‘they’re such beautiful shirts… it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such- such beautiful shirts before’; Daisy's emotional attachment is not to Gatsby, but rather to the splendid display of his wealth and possessions. Fitzgerald displays her as shallow, empty, and lacking any substance. Fitzgerald uses characters like Daisy to reflect the careless, irresponsible, thoughtless, amoral attitudes of the time. Daisy is more representative of people during the decadent world of the Jazz Age.
Fitzgerald concludes the chapter is with Nick being the one alone, which is a change of situation as it is usually Gatsby isolated from company. Nick seems almost jealous of the relationship Gatsby and Daisy have. This is shown by the long sentence length used by Nick describing Gatsby and Daisy in the final stages of the chapter where they have fallen for each other. Nick uses long sentences such as ‘They had forgotten me but Daisy glanced up and held out her hand; Gatsby didn’t know me now at all’ this shows Nicks jealousy of their relationship and the sentence is broken down into three parts to show how each character is feeling. Nick feels forgotten, Daisy feels she needs someone by holding out her hand and Gatsby is shown to be madly in love by not acknowledging Nick and fixating on Daisy. Chapter 5 is presented as the turning point within the novel when Gatsby and Daisy reunite and where the green light by the deck is not a dream anymore because Daisy is with Gatsby.
by
lydiageorge (student)
