Reading The Great Gatsby (continued)

The situation comes to a head on a hot summer day. All the interested parties are present: Daisy and Tom, Nick and Jordan, and Gatsby. They are enjoying a lazy, relaxing afternoon charged with suspicious glances and sexual tension. Daisy suggests they go into the city because she is bored, and Tom seizes upon the idea as a way to expose what is really going on between Gatsby and Daisy.

Everybody piles into cars, with Nick, Tom and Jordan riding in Gatsby’s car, and Daisy and Gatsby in Tom’s car. While filling up at a gas station, the owner , Mr. Wilson, reveals to Nick, Tom, and Jordan that he thinks his lovely wife, Myrtle, is cheating on him, but he is not sure of the identity of her lover.

In a suite at the Plaza, the truth comes out, and Gatsby and Tom argue over Daisy. As they argue, Daisy realizes that she actually does love Tom more. The fight ends, and they begin their journey back. To prove that he has nothing to fear from Gatsby, Tom sends Daisy and Gatsby home in the same car together. A few minutes behind them, Tom, Jordan, and Nick follow. As their car approaches the gas station, they discover that Myrtle has been hit by a car and killed. Nick immediately realizes that Myrtle must have been killed by the car carrying Daisy and Gatsby.

Useful vocabulary to describe the climax of The Great Gatsby:  

• Debacle - Disaster

• Culpable - Guilty

• Reproachable - Deserving blame

• Peril - Danger

• Blithe - Careless

When they arrive at home, Daisy is inside, and Gatsby is hiding in the bushes. Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he is going to take the blame for her. He is so worried that Tom is going to hurt Daisy that he sends Nick in to check on her. Gatsby’s concern isn’t necessary – Nick finds the happy couple talking and eating chicken!

The next morning Nick tries to convince Gatsby to forget about Daisy, but Gatsby tells him about dating her in Louisville years ago. When he went away to war, she promised that she would marry him when he returned, but in the mean time she married Tom, a man much closer to her in social class. Nick leaves Gatsby, telling him that he is better than the Buchanans and deserves better. Meanwhile, Myrtle’s husband has been up all night since the death of his wife and now believes that whoever killed her was her lover. But when Wilson seeks out Tom, he is told that Gatsby was in fact the driver of the car that killed Myrtle. Wilson finds Gatsby floating in his pool, and shoots him, killing him instantly and then killing himself.