Mrs.
Opaleski-DiMeo – English III
The Great Gatsby Close Reading Questions Name
Consider the following questions as you read the novel. Remember that a strong reading strategy is to preview the
questions before reading. Please answer this questions on a separate sheet of paper.
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Mrs. Opaleski-DiMeo – English III
Title Page
1. The book opens with an inscription on the title page by Thomas Parke D’Invilliers. D’Invilliers is a character in
another book by Fitzgerald called This Side of Paradise; he based the character on John Peale Bishop, a close
friend and tutor of Fitzgerald’s at Princeton.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”
Summarize the inscription and describe the tone of the four lines.
Chapter I
* As you go through this chapter, keep a list of everything you notice that is artificial, fake, unreal, or phony.**
1. How would you describe the relationship between the narrator and his father?
2. What is your reaction to Nick’s comment, “I’m inclined to reserve all judgments”?
3. What does Nick mean by “a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth”?
4. What yearning is apparent in Nick’s recollection, “When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted
the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever”?
5. Why is Gatsby “exempt from [Nick’s] reaction”?
6. What is Nick’s attitude toward Gatsby at the beginning of the novel?
7. Why does Nick describe Gatsby as having an “extraordinary gift for hope”?
8. What is Nick’s attitude toward his new life on the East Coast?
9. What is the meaning of Nick’s thought, “And so it happened on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to
see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all”?
10. What is the effect of the following description from chapter one:
The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into
the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting
them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a
shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
11. How are Daisy and Jordan described when Nick enters the room, and what effect does this have on the reader?
12. How does Daisy regard her husband’s physical strength? Why does she choose to reveal the bruise?
13. What draws Tom to Goddard’s book, The Rise of the Colored Empires? What do you think this reveals about
Tom?
Chapter II
** As you go through this chapter, keep a list of everything you notice that is artificial, fake, unreal, or phony.**
1. What is the tone of the description of the valley of ashes?
2. Why does Fitzgerald include the billboard of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg?
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Mrs. Opaleski-DiMeo – English III
3. How does Myrtle treat her husband?
4. What is the effect on the reader of describing Wilson as coated with “white ashen dust?”
5. How does Myrtle’s behavior change when she changes clothes?
6. What does it show about Nick when he says, “Doesn’t she like Wilson either”?
7. What do we learn about Nick when he reflects, “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled
by the inexhaustible variety of life”?
8. What is the significance of her statement, “You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever”?
9. Why does Tom hit Myrtle and break her nose?
10. Look at the list of artificial, distorted, decaying or phony things you noticed in this chapter. Why does Fitzgerald
spotlight these kinds of behaviors and settings?
Chapter III
* As you go through this chapter, focus on how Fitzgerald characterizes Gatsby .**
1. Why are Gatsby’s gardens “blue”? (Hint: Review color symbolism notes)
2. What is the tone of the first paragraph of chapter 3? How do you know?
[Link] is the tone of the paragraph starting with “The lights grow brighter”? How do you know?
4. What is the effect of describing the man in the library as having “enormous owl-eyed spectacles”?
5. How does Gatsby’s smile affect Nick, why does it vanish, and how does Nick regard Gatsby when it does?
6. Why does Fitzgerald portray Gatsby several times in this chapter, standing alone on the porch?
7. What is your reaction to Nick’s comment, “Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply”?
8. Why has Nick continued to write letters to his girlfriend back home and signing them, “Love, Nick”?
9. Is Nick “inclined to reserve all judgments,” as he says about himself?
Chapter IV
* As you go through this chapter, focus on how Fitzgerald characterizes Gatsby.**
1. What is the meaning of the phrase, “the world and its mistress”? (Hint: Think about the time period and the
characters)
2. Why does Fitzgerald include a long list of partygoers in this chapter? What do you notice about their names and
details? Why does Fitzgerald note the deaths of many of them?
3. Nick is now “submerged in fascination”; what has brought about the change in his attitude?
4. What is the effect of juxtaposing (contrasting) the valley of ashes with Mrs. Wilson “with panting vitality” at the
garage pump?
(Chapter IV Continued)
5. Nick has taken two trips to New York by the end of this chapter, one with Tom in Chapter II and another with
Gatsby in this chapter. What are the similarities and differences between the two trips?
6. Why does Daisy get drunk the night before she marries Tom Buchanan?
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Mrs. Opaleski-DiMeo – English III
7. What is the significance of Nick’s thought, “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired”?
8. What attracts Nick to Jordan at the end of the chapter?
Chapter V
* As you go through this chapter, focus on how Fitzgerald further characterizes Daisy.**
1. What is the effect of Gatsby’s clothing—a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie?
2. Why does Fitzgerald spotlight Daisy’s “well-loved eyes”?
3. Why does Daisy begin to cry and say “They’re such beautiful shirts…It makes me sad because I’ve never seen
such beautiful shirts before”?
4. Why would the significance of the green light have vanished for Gatsby now?
5. The lyrics on pages 100-101 come from a 1921 song entitled “Ain’t We Got Fun?” by Gus Kahn and Raymond B.
Egan. What is the significance of the lyrics?
6. Why does Nick describe Daisy’s voice as “a deathless song”?
Chapter VI
* As you go through this chapter, keep a list of everything you notice about Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship.**
1. “Platonic” means ideal, from Plato’s conception of reality. What “Platonic conception” does Gatsby have of
himself?
2. What is unique about the party the following Saturday night?
3. Why is Nick looking at the party “through Daisy’s eyes,” and what conclusions does he come to by doing this?
4. Why is Daisy “appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented ‘place’ that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island
fishing village”? What is the “awful” thing she sees?
5. What does Nick think that Gatsby “wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never
loved you’”?
6. What is the significance of Nick’s comment, “You can’t repeat the past,” and Gatsby’s response, “Why of course
you can!”? Why does Gatsby want to defeat the power of time?
Chapter VII
* As you go through this chapter, focus on how Fitzgerald creates the climax of the novel.**
1. What is the tone of Daisy’s “Bles-sed pre-cious”? How can you tell?
2. What role does Pammy play in Daisy’s life?
3. What is the mood of the luncheon? How can you tell?
4. How does Nick know that Daisy has told Gatsby she loves him?
5. Why does Nick notice Dr. Eckleburg’s eyes?
6. What does Nick mean by the thought, “…--and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in
intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well”?
7. Why does Nick have “one of those renewals of complete faith in [Gatsby] that [he] had experienced before”?
8. What is the significance of Tom’s saying, “Self-control! ..I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr.
Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out…Nowadays people
begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have
intermarriage between black and white”?
9. Why does Nick think Tom “[sees] himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization”?
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10. Why is Daisy’s voice “lost” as Gatsby tries to defend himself to her?
11. Nick, Jordan, and Tom took Gatsby’s yellow car into town; Daisy and Gatsby rode in Gatsby’s blue coupe. Why
does Tom tell Daisy to return home with Gatsby in Gatsby’s yellow car, instead of having her return with him?
12. Why has Nick forgotten that today is his thirtieth birthday?
13. Why do they “[drive] on toward death”?
14. Why does Tom take charge of the accident investigation and tell them to sit with Wilson?
15. What is the tone of the scene where Daisy and Tom are at the kitchen table? How can you tell?
16. Why does Nick think, “…anybody would have said that they were conspiring together”?
17. Why does Nick leave Gatsby “watching over nothing”?
Chapter VIII
1. Why does Fitzgerald choose this point in the book to recount Gatsby’s story about his meeting Daisy?
2. Why does Nick describe Gatsby’s dream as “incorruptible”?
3. Why does Nick “want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage” at this point in the story?
4. Was Myrtle running from something or to something?
5. What is the significance of Doctor Eckleberg’s eyes “which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the
dissolving night”?
6. Why does Nick return to Gatsby’s house?
7. Why does Fitzgerald have Gatsby die in the pool? Why is the description of his death so mild and clean compared
with Myrtle’s?
Chapter IX
* As you go through this chapter, think about the chapter’s purpose; meaning, what not end the novel after chapter
8?.*
1. Considering Nick’s ambivalent feelings toward Gatsby, why does he find himself “on Gatsby’s side”? Why is he
“alone” in his decision to side with Gatsby?
2. Why does Nick “have a feeling of defiance, of scornful solidarity between Gatsby and [him] against them all”
when he gets Wolfsheim’s message that he won’t be coming to the funeral?
3. What does Nick mean by describing Henry Gatz as having “reached an age where death no longer has the quality
of ghastly surprise”?
4. What does it show about Klipspringer that he asks for his shoes?
5. Why is it significant that the man with owl-eyed glasses is the only other person to come to Gatsby’s funeral?
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Mrs. Opaleski-DiMeo – English III
6. What “quality of distortion” and “haunted” feel does the East have for Nick?
7. What is the reason for Fitzgerald’s focusing on Jordan’s and Nick’s “bad driving”?
8. What is the reader’s impression of Tom Buchanan here, compared to our first impression of him?
9. Why does Nick say that Tom and Daisy are “careless people”?
10. What comment is Nick making about human nature in his thoughts, from “Its vanished trees” to “his capacity for
wonder”?
11. Why did Gatsby “[believe] in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us”?
12. What is the significance of the last line of the novel: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past”?
After you finish reading the book:
1. Look again at the inscription on the title page:
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry lover “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”
Now that you have finished the book, what is the significance of the inscription now?
2. Fitzgerald considered a number of titles for his novel, including Among the Ash-Heaps and Millionaires,
Trimalchio in West Egg, Gold-Hatted Gatsby, The High-Bouncing Lover, On the Road to West Egg, and Under
the Red, White, and Blue. Discuss the ways in which these titles do and do not reflect the focus and purpose of
the novel.
3. Fitzgerald wrote to his editor, “The worst fault in [the novel] is a BIG FAULT: I gave no account (and had no
feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between Gatsby and Daisy from the time of their reunion
to the catastrophe.” (from The Crack-up, p.270). Why does Fitzgerald leave this out, and do you agree or
disagree with this statement?
4. Where is the climax in the novel, and why?