Chapter 4 starts with more rumors of Gatsby. The young ladies on his lawn say ‘’He’s a bootlelegger, one time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil.’’ This book is starting to annoy me. I know that it is just the 4th chapter, but I am curious about Gatsby. All we know is some rumors that go around about him, and that is it. We don’t know anything about his family, where he comes from, or even what he does for a living.
Personally I didn’t like the beginning of this chapter, and the one and a half page list of names. I thought that was too long and unnecessary, did Fitzgerald get bored so he felt like listing names for a page and a half? I didn’t even quite read it, because it had nothing to do with the story what so ever, and it felt like Fitzgerald was doing it on purpose; making the reader curious, and holding him/her. I continued the story from the end of the list.
Nick and Gatsby become good friends, and start to spend time together in the hydroplane, at his beach, and of course at his parties. Nick says ‘’He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand’’ when he is describing Gatsby. Gatsby is very energetic and full of life (you can also understand this from how big his parties are), but he is also very nervous, like he is hiding something that he doesn’t want anyone to find out, and of course this makes the reader suspicious.
Through the times Nick spent together with Gatsby, he found out to his disappointment that ‘’he had little to say.’’ This was to my disappointment as well, as I thought that he was a man of many words. Nick continues ‘’So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate roadhouse next door.’’ I think that Nick starts to discredit Gatsby. I still think that he is a man of many words, and the reason that he has little to say is that he is hiding something (that hopefully we will find out later on). My impression of Gatsby is that he is still the ‘’undefined consequence’’, for he still has a secret. On the back of the book it says ‘’Jay Gatsby and the dark mystery that surrounds him’’; and we still haven’t found out Gatsby’s secret. I am curious.
When Gatsby comes to get Nick for their lunch in the city, they start talking in the car. ‘’ ‘I don’t want you to get a wrong idea of me from all these stories you hear.’ So he was aware of the bizarre accusations that flavoured conversation in his halls.’’ This is the first time that we hear something about Gatsby from his own mouth, and that isn’t a rumor. I thought that it was weird though, he knows that all these people are gossiping about him, and he still opens his house to every one of them, and doesn’t try to explain himself and remains a mystery to every one of them.
Gatsby then says that he is the son of wealthy people in Middle West that are all dead now. He was raised in America but went to Oxford, since it was a family tradition. When Nick asks him which part of the Middle West he is from, Gatsby says San Francisco. I was as surprised as Nick was since San Francisco is not in the Middle West. Gatsby is definitely hiding something. He continues his story by saying that he came into a great deal of money when his family died, and he went to the capitals of Europe, ‘’trying to forget something very sad that happened’’ to him long ago. I think that this ‘very sad’ thing that happened is Gatsby’s secret.
I was surprised when Gatsby said that he ‘’tried very hard to die’’ in the war, but ‘’seemed to bear an enchanted life’’. Who tries hard to die? I started to think that underneath all the money, glamour, and the parties; Gatsby is a very lonely and depressed man, probably because of the thing that happened to him.
‘’I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me. You’ll hear about it this afternoon.’’ When Gatsby said this, unlike Nick I wasn’t annoyed, I was interested to find out Gatsby’s secret; and the fact that the moment finally arrived kept me reading.
On page 44, it says: ‘’the city from the Quensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.’’ I like this quote a lot; I thought that it was a unique description of a city.
When they go to have lunch in the city, a man named Mr. Wolfsheim joins them. When Mr. Gatsby leaves the table for a phone call, we find out a little more about him from Mr. Wolfsheim. ‘’He went to Oxford College in England’’ Mr. Wolfsheim says; to the surprise of Jordan, Nick, and I; because I thought that he was lying about Oxford as well. Mr. Wolfsheim says that he has known Gatsby for several years now (he can’t be lying) and ‘’made the pleasure of his acquaintance just after the war. But I knew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked to him an hour.’’ We learn that later on Meyer Wolfsheim is a gambler and he is the man who fixed the World Series in 1919.
After their lunch is finished, Nick sees Tom in the far corner of the restaurant. He takes Gatsby to introduce him to Tom. When they shake hands, an ‘’unfamiliar look of embarrassment’’ comes across Gatsby’s face; which I wondered why he was so embarrassed. ‘’I’ve been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby’’ says Nick, but when he turns Mr. Gatsby is no longer there. I thought that this was the strangest thing that Gatsby did ever since the beginning of the novel. He had particularly no reason to feel embarrassed, and no reason to vanish; unless, he is hiding something, and his secret contains Tom.
Nick then goes to the Plaza Hotel to have tea with Jordan. She starts talking about Daisy, and this is the first time that we find out about her, and about Gatsby’s secret. Turns out, Jay Gatsby was Daisy’s old boyfriend and they were in love. Daisy, even hesitated to marry Tom when she received a letter (I suspect that it was from Gatsby). But later on, she married Tom without a shrug. Daisy was mad about her husband, and they had a very happy marriage, ‘’it was touching to see them together.’’ In the first chapter, when Nick came to dinner, Daisy heard the name Gatsby again, and sneaked into Jordan’s room at night to ask about him. When Jordan explained Gatsby, she was sure that he was the man from years ago.
Gatsby waited five years for her, he even bought the house on purpose, so that Daisy would be right across the bay, and he would see her house every day. I thought that this might be the reason that he stands on the bay at night, just looking into the sky or Daisy’s house. Learning Gatsby’s secret was relieving. I was shocked, because I wasn’t expecting a secret like this. The book started to get interesting, and I have a feeling that it will get more interesting when Nick invited Daisy for tea at his house, and Gatsby shows up as well.
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