Gatsby Chapter 4

Discussion Questions

Fitzgerald gives us a long list of the people who come to Gatsby’s parties. Why? What inferences can you make about the people as a group?
Why doesn’t Nick believe Gatsby’s story of his youth at first? What detail finally convinces him? Are you also convinced?
What kind of “business gonnegtion” do you think Meyer Wolfsheim has in mind for Nick? What does the Wolfsheim scene add to your picture of Gatsby? (click here to learn about Arnold Rothstein)
How is your picture of Daisy altered by Jordan’s description of Daisy’s past?
Explain this line of Nick’s: “Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor” (78).
What are your reactions to discovering Gatsby’s secret? Does this make him more sympathetic? Appealing? Creepy? How does Nick seem to feel about it?
Consider these two quotations:

--“Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm” (79).

--“Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms” (80).

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