Chapter 5 is pivotal in The Great Gatsby as it depicts the long-awaited reunion between Gatsby and his lost love Daisy. Gatsby is anxiously anticipating their meeting. The chapter builds rising dramatic tension until their encounter, which is overwhelmed with emotion. However, cracks in Gatsby's perfect vision of the past resurface, symbolized by his knocking over Nick's clock. The rekindled romance and Gatsby's waning dream of recapturing lost love will have consequences that drive the plot forward.

1. The Great Gatsby
Chapter 5

2. Why is Gatsby nervous when he
meets Nick outside his house?
a) He is eager for Nick to arrange a
meeting with Daisy
b) He is waiting for a “shipment”
c) He is worried that he has offended Nick
d) He has just killed someone

3. What happens before Gatsby meets
Daisy that makes him so anxious?
a) His mother arrives in town
b) Daisy cancels their meeting
c) It rains
d) Nick catches the flu

4. How does Nick feel about Gatsby’s offer to
compensate him for his help by hiring him?
a) Nick is concerned that the work will be
illegal
b) Nick is offended that Gatsby is offering to
pay him for his help
c) Nick appreciates the offer, but regretfully
declines
d) Nick is overjoyed because he hates his
current job

5. What does Gatsby show Daisy that
makes her cry?
a) His unsent letters to her from the war
b) A picture of his mother
c) His collection of nice shirts
d) A picture of him aged 18 with a
pompadour hairstyle and a yacht

6. Why does Nick decide to leave
Gatsby’s mansion?
a) He has a date with Jordan
b) He feels Gatsby and Daisy have
forgotten him anyway
c) He doesn’t like the songs that
Klipspringer is playing
d) Gatsby makes a derogatory joke about
Nick’s parents

7. Form and structure
• Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of The Great Gatsby, as
Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy is the hinge on which the novel
swings.
• Before this event, the story of their relationship exists only in
prospect, as Gatsby moves toward a dream that no one else
can discern. Afterwards, the plot shifts its focus to the
romance between Gatsby and Daisy, and the tensions in their
relationship actualize themselves.
• After Gatsby’s history with Daisy is revealed, a meeting
between the two becomes inevitable, and it is highly
appropriate that the theme of the past’s significance to the
future is evoked in this chapter.
• As the novel explores ideas of love, excess, and the American
dream, it becomes clearer and clearer to the reader that
Gatsby’s emotional frame is out of sync with the passage of
time. His nervousness about the present and about how
Daisy’s attitude toward him may have changed causes him to
knock over Nick’s clock, symbolizing the clumsiness of his
attempt to stop time and retrieve the past.

8. Structure: Freytag’s triangle
• According to Freytag, a drama is divided into
five parts, or acts, which some refer to as
a dramatic arc: exposition, rising action,
climax, falling action, and dénouement.
• Although Freytag's analysis of dramatic
structure is based on five-act plays, it can be
applied (sometimes in a modified manner) to
short stories and novels as well.

10. Freytag’s triangle and The
Great Gatsby
Exposition or Introduction (Chapter 1)
The exposition provides the background information needed to properly understand
the story, such as the problem in the beginning of the story, characters, and setting.
Once upon a time...
Rising action (Chapters 2-4)
During rising action, the basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of
related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that often frustrate the
protagonist's attempt to reach his goal. Secondary conflicts can include adversaries
of lesser importance than the story’s antagonist, who may work with the antagonist
or separately, by and for themselves or actions unknown, and also the conflict. A
rising action is the base for the climax.
Climax (Chapter 5)
The third act is that of the climax, or turning point, which marks a change, for the
better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs. If the story is a comedy, things will
have gone badly for the protagonist up to this point; now, the tide, so to speak, will
turn, and things will begin to go well for him or her. If the story is a tragedy, the
opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from good to bad for the
protagonist. Simply put, this is where the main part happens or the most dramatic
part.

11. Scenes and places
• p.81 – “The day agreed upon was pouring
rain.”
• What is significant about the weather on
the day?
• What technique does Fitzgerald use
throughout the chapter?

12. Characterisation
• p.83 – “Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged
like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle
of water glaring tragically into my eyes.”
• p.85 – “he followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the
door, and whispered: ‘Oh, God!’ in a miserable way.
[...] ‘You’re acting like a little boy,’ I broke out impatiently.
• How do these extracts contrast the image of Gatsby we
have been shown so far in the novel?
• What might be significant about this?

13. Setting
• Look at the description of Gatsby’s
mansion on p.85-86.
• What might the use of feudal imagery and
descriptions of peasants and serfs
suggest about The American Dream?

14. The American Dream
• In this chapter, Gatsby’s house is compared several times to that of a
feudal lord, and his imported clothes, antiques, and luxuries all
display a nostalgia for the lifestyle of a British aristocrat.
• Though Nick and Daisy are amazed and dazzled by Gatsby’s splendid
possessions, a number of things in Nick’s narrative suggest that
something is not right about this transplantation of an aristocrat’s
lifestyle into democratic America.
• For example, Nick notes that the brewer who built the house in which
Gatsby now lives tried to pay the neighbouring villagers to have their
roofs thatched, to complement the style of the mansion. They refused,
Nick says, because Americans are obstinately unwilling to play the
role of peasants.
• Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers envisioned America
as a place that would be free of the injustices of class and caste, a
place where people from humble backgrounds would be free to try to
improve themselves economically and socially. Chapter 5 suggests
that this dream of improvement, carried to its logical conclusion,
results in a superficial imitation of the old European social system that
America supposedly left behind.

15. Setting
• P.88-89

16. p.90 - end
Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he
seemed absorbed in what he had just said.
Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal
significance of that light had now vanished
forever. Compared to the great distance that
separated him from Daisy it had seemed very
near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed
as close as a star to the moon. Now it was
again a green light on a dock. His count of
enchanted objects had diminished by one.

17. ‘Don’t talk so
much, old
sport,’
commanded
Gatsby. ‘Play!’

18. "Ain't We Got Fun?" (Van &
Schenck, 1921)

19. ‘Ain’t We Got Fun?’
‘In the morning,
In the evening,
Ain’t we got fun –’
‘One thing’s sure and nothing’s surer
The rich get richer and the poor get – children.
In the meantime,
In between time,
Ain’t we got fun!’