Discussion Board

This discussion board for the week will be covering the rather large and rather important chapter of Gatsby for the week, Chapter 7. Your responses on this board should be a little more "meaty" than perhaps on some other weeks' boards, as this chapter is a critical one for both characters and the overall plot line of the novel. Please take a little extra time with your answers as well as your followup posts this week. Think things through carefully and really try to do a bit of literary analysis as you make your answers to the following:

1. The first few pages of the chapter go to lengths to explain to you that Gatsby's behavior abruptly changes at this point in the story, and his parties that have been a mainstay of Egg life throughout the summer suddenly halt. Why do you think Gatsby all of a sudden changes his behavior in this way? Explain.

2. This seems trivial, but becomes quite important later. When all the main characters decide to drive in to New York City, who is in what car? Later on in the chapter, what does this cause Myrtle Wilson to assume? What does this assumption cause her to do, and cause to happen to her by the end of the chapter?

3. What is your overall sense of the emotion and physical sensation throughout the scene inside the New York City hotel room that the characters visit? By the time Gatsby leaves the scene, what would you say Tom's mindset/attitude is, vs. that of Gatsby?

4. Look at the final few pages of the chapter, where Nick and Gatsby are watching Tom and Daisy. What do you as a reader think Tom and Daisy are doing in this scene, even though you (and Nick and Gatsby) cannot hear what Tom and Daisy are saying? What sort of mindset does Gatsby have at this point, do you think, and what do you think of that? What do you think Nick is thinking about Gatsby and this whole situation at this point?