Gatsby is agitated and exploring his house obsessively at night due to restlessness. The next day, he invites Daisy over in an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts. When Daisy arrives, Gatsby is pale and nervous, unsure if he has improved enough to gain her approval. Their interaction is awkward at first. Gatsby shows Daisy around his house and possessions in an attempt to impress her, but realizes afterward that Daisy was the true motivation for acquiring his wealth, not the possessions themselves. When Daisy leaves, Gatsby is left deflated, realizing that the real Daisy may not live up to the perfect fantasy he had imagined for so long.

1. Chapter 5

2. GATSBY’S HOUSE
• Restlessness.
• Gatsby is agitated - exploring his
house obsessively in the middle of
the night
• Needs a distraction away from his
thoughts.

3. CHARACTERISATION - NICK
“I‟m going to call up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over
here to tea…What day would suit you?”
Nick is happy to act as a go-between to
facilitate the relationship between
Gatsby and Daisy
Discussion: What does this suggest
about his morals? Is he as honest as he
professes?

5. GATSBY’S PREPARATIONS
“Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold colored
tie”
• reflects the white that Daisy often wears.
• He wants to appear pure, even though he has earned his
money dishonestly.
• “He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness
beneath his eyes.”
• He appeared nervous and worried; he has been obsessing
about this encounter for years.

6. GATSBY’S NERVOUSNESS
• He was “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.”
• He is unsure of himself and uncomfortable – unsure if he
has sufficiently improved to gain Daisy’s approval.
• The tragic look in his eyes shows his fear of failure -
if he fails, he has nothing left to live for, this is all the
hope and labor of his life

8. DAISY – FIRST TIME WE SEE HER
SINCERE
„I‟m glad, Jay.‟ Her throat, full of aching, grieving
beauty, told only of her unexpected joy.”
She is trying to control her behavior, but her
voice betrays her at first - she is overcome with
emotion.

10. ROMANCE?
“Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was
reclining against the mantelpiece in a
strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of
boredom...from this position his distraught
eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting,
frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff
chair.”

12. AWKWARD
• Gatsby is nervous and has forgotten etiquette - keeping hands
in pockets.
• He tries to fake being comfortable and ends up looking
ridiculous.
• hands are trembling - a visible sign of the emotion; artificial
pose
• Daisy hides and restrains her emotions.
• Only the fact that she is sitting on the edge of the chair is
evidence to her emotional state - she is literally on
edge, perhaps wanting to jump up and express her
exuberance, but holding herself stiffly back.

14. CLOCK - SYMBOLISM
Gatsby, fumbling, lets fall a clock
“I think we all believed for a moment that it had
smashed in pieces to the floor.” (87)
• danger and destruction in Gatsby’s world – reality
almost shatters the moment
• symbolises the clumsiness of his attempts to stop
time and retrieve the past

15. Do you think that Gatsby loves Daisy or is
obsessed with her for some other reason?

16. WHAT DAISY MEANS TO GATSBY?
• Daisy represents the wealth that Gatsby could never
aspire to as a young man.
• Rich and beautiful, her rejection and marriage to Tom was
proof of his poor background.
• Even though he was a better person and loved Daisy,
money won.
• Gatsby has been obsessed with Daisy because she is
the unattainable fantasy. Winning her love would
prove Gatsby’s worth and make his life and hard
work worthwhile.

18. SENSITIVITY
“They were sitting at either end of the couch,
looking at each other as if some question had
been asked, or was in the air, and every
vestige of embarrassment gone. Daisy’s face
was smeared with tears...there was a change
in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He
literally glowed; a new well-being radiated
from him.”

19. AWW
• In their privacy Gatsby and Daisy have allowed
their feelings to show.
• Daisy becomes human and allows herself to
cry and show emotion - this is the true
Daisy, fragile and sad, wanting to be happy.
• She responds with honesty, not false charm.
• Gatsby also changes, radiating in Daisy’s
company.

20. • She calls Gatsby by his first name, showing intimacy and a
close relationship.
• Her voice expresses pain mixed with pleasure.
• She allows herself to express her true self
• Gatsby’s presence reminds her what she has lost
• Daisy’s past was filled with hope and possibility and the
loving gaze of an infatuated admirer while her present
features a cheating, unloving husband, violence and
depression, and Gatsby as a reminder of her materialistic,
rather than emotional, choices.

22. GATSBY SHOWS OFF HIS WEALTH
• The world has taught him to appreciate
appearances and possessions.
• The only way he knows how to impress
Daisy is with wealth.

23. “He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy...he
revalued everything in his house according to
the measure of response it drew from her
well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared
around at his possessions in a dazed way, as
though in her actual and astounding presence
none of it was any longer real.”

24. DAISY IS HIS MOTIVATION
• The possessions have no real value for Gatsby.
He only amassed wealth to win Daisy’s love.
• Daisy is the measure of value, nothing matters
to Gatsby if it doesn’t make her happy.
• Daisy offers him things that are not measurable
or tangible - emotion, connection, a cure for
restlessness.

26. GATSBY’S SHIRTS
“He took out a pile of shirts and began
throwing them...many colored disarray”
• Reckless about his wealth
• Has a personal shopper – doesn’t care to
pick his clothes out himself
• They’re a means to impress Daisy

27. DAISY’S REACTION
• She is impressed with material wealth
• She is materialistic and shallow
• She shows more emotion towards the
shirts than Gatsby
• Overjoyed at his success

29. GREEN LIGHT
• Gatsby admits to Daisy that he bought his house
because he can see Daisy’s green light across the
water. The light is a sign of hope for him, always on
and visible.

30. “the colossal significance of that light has
now vanished forever. Compared to the great
distance that had 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.” (93)

31. GREEN LIGHT
• Now that he has lured Daisy and bridged the gap between
them, the light has lost its significance and symbolic value for
Gatsby.
• He has achieved his goal, but lost the magical quality of hope
- part of the enchantment that made his character so charming
is gone.
• He has Daisy, he doesn’t need to dream anymore, but a
dreamer without a dream is ….
• He has deflated without his dream. The lack of a dream can
have devastating affects on a man.

32. JOURNEY
Sometimes, the journey, not
the goal, is the most
important.

34. THE PHONE…
• Reality invades the dream.
• Gatsby’s reality is not as glamorous as he presents it to
be, it is shady.
• He has ruined his innocence and purity in the pursuit
of an ideal - he is no longer worthy of untainted
happiness.
• He is left with the real Daisy, flaws, past and all – not
the perfect Daisy he has imagined.

35. “the expression of bewilderment had come back into
Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt has occurred to
him as to the quality of his present happiness. There
must have been moments even that afternoon when
Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her
own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his
illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He
had thrown himself into it with a creative passion,
adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright
feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or
freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his
ghostly heart.” (95-6)

36. REALITY VS. DREAMS
• Ideals lead to disappointment; he doesn’t love Daisy
the girl, but Daisy the fantasy
• Disappointment: Gatsby realizes that Daisy can never
live up to the perfect expectations he had of her.
• It isn’t Daisy’s fault that she is flawed, she is human. It
is Gatsby’s imagination that is to blame
• Did Gatsby have the wrong dream?