The Great Gatsby: Chapter Seven

Question: Select a passage that utilizes symbolism. Discuss how this passage contributes to your interpretation of the work as a whole and comment on the symbols on the overall meaning of the novel.

Answer:

            Chapter Seven holds the climax of The Great Gatsby. Here is where the truth of Daisy and Gatsby’s affair becomes known to Tom, Daisy finds out that Gatsby earned his wealth through illegal ways and Myrtle Wilson is killed. There is also a symbol used to describe Daisy that reveals something about her voice and its symbolism. As Nick and Gatsby converse over Daisy’s voice, Nick thinks, “Gatsby turned to me rigidly: "I can't say anything in his house, old sport."

"She's got an indiscreet voice," I remarked. "It's full of-"

I hesitated.

"Her voice is full of money," he said suddenly.

That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . .” (Fitzgerald, 120).

            Daisy’s voice had been one of her most notable qualities. When Nick goes to her house in Chapter One, he talks of her voice and says, “I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.” (Fitzgerald, 9). It’s a quality of hers that is mentioned often.

            Gatsby refers to her voice by saying, “Her voice is full of money.” (Fitzgerald, 9).By saying this, his saying that her voice sounds wealthy and makes her sound like she’s a rich, respectable and dignified person who is from ‘old money’. This helps explain why Gatsby, who grew up poor, finds her voice so alluring because it signifies his dream of being ‘old money’, which he can never be since it’s something you need to be born into.

            Nick compares Daisy to someone “high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (Fitzgerald, 120). To hear Nick refer to his cousin that way sheds some light on who she really is. When he says that she’s ‘high’ in a palace, it symbolizes her being unreachable and unattainable. This could refer to how Gatsby’s been trying to get her back all these years and saying that she’ll always be out of his reach, which is a foreshadowing on the end of the chapter. Also, her position high in the castle would result in her looking down on anybody not at her ‘height’ or in her social class. This would make sense based on how she was disgusted and offended by the people at Gatsby’s party because they weren’t ‘old money’ people and they behaved differently than her. The ‘white palace’ that she’s in would be symbolic of her being in a place or living a life where she’s oblivious and uncaring to the outside world or people of lesser wealth or social standing than her (unless it’s to look down on them from her elevated position). Throughout the whole novel so far, she hasn’t truly concerned herself with anything that didn’t directly affect her. The color white symbolizes perfection, safety and innocence. This can easily be taken to mean that her ‘palace’ can keep her safe and secure with her money to protect her from any harshness of the world and keep everything perfect. The innocence saying that it can keep her conscience clear so that she’s grown up without bothering to fell guilt over any of her actions that have affected or harmed others and to feel guiltless over not helping anyone else but herself. For example, when she ran over another human being, Myrtle, she didn’t even stop the car. Then she allowed Gatsby to take the blame because her main concern was not for the person that she just hit, but for making sure that she didn’t get in trouble for it. When Gatsby tells of Daisy’s reaction to the hit and run, he says “Anyhow- Daisy stepped on it. I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t, so I pulled on the emergency break. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on.” (Fitzgerald, 144). Her being a ‘king’s daughter’ is just showing that she comes from ‘old money’ and was born into her position without doing any work to earn her riches. She’s also ‘the golden girl’, which is again just saying that she’s perfect and loved by all. The golden has the double meaning of symbolizing ‘old money’. In conclusion, she’s a selfish, rich girl who’s never worked for her money and turns her nose up at anyone that’s ‘lesser’ than her.

            This particular passage, along with the chapter that accompanied it, affected my feelings towards Daisy greatly. She was never my favorite character and she has done some very suspect and cold things throughout the novel, but I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt so far. However, this chapter has shown her true colors and the symbol that Nick uses to describe her explains what they are perfectly. She’s simply a selfish person who doesn’t care for anything, but herself and her money. Now that I see who she really is, it affects my judgment of other characters as well.

I feel beyond sorry that Gatsby, who, although he has illegal dealings, is a gentlemanly and caring man, has become infatuated with her. My hope for him is that he can come to realize that he’s too good for her and that she doesn’t care for him and that his love for her can finally come to an end.

I’ve also begun to think that Jordan, who is very close friends with Daisy, must be worse than I was expecting as well if she finds pleasure and happiness with spending time with Daisy. So far, I’ve had little care for Jordan and didn’t have any opinions for or against her. I thought that what Nick said of her in chapter three, “She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body.” (Fitzgerald, 59), showed that she wasn’t somebody that I’d want to be around, but it made her interesting and she could still be a good person, even if she was a liar. However, I now suspect that Jordan is most likely as bad as Daisy since they’re so close. I don’t see how a good person could bear to surround themselves with a people like Daisy. For example, Nick gets sick of the lot of them and their selfish, stuck up ways and says, “I’d had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too.” (Fitzgerald, 142).