English resources/The Great Gatsby/Chapter 8
The Great Gatsby, Chapter 8
Gatsby waits for Daisy's call. It does not come. Wilson finds him in the pool.
The Great Gatsby has 9 chapters. Chapter 8 comes after Chapter 7 and before Chapter 9. The key line here comes from Nick.
This chapter in five words
WilsonkillsGatsbyinpool
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What happens, in more detail
Nick cannot sleep after the night of the accident and goes over to Gatsby's house before dawn. Gatsby has stood outside Daisy's house all night and nothing has happened. Now he tells Nick the real story of his youth: meeting Daisy in Louisville as a poor young officer, falling in love, going to war, and losing her to Tom.
Gatsby still hopes Daisy will call. Nick leaves for work, and before he goes he shouts back across the lawn that Gatsby is worth more than all the rest of them put together. It is the only compliment he ever pays him.
Meanwhile, George Wilson has sat up all night grieving for Myrtle, staring at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg as if they were God. In the morning he sets out to find the owner of the yellow car that killed her. That afternoon Gatsby goes for a swim in his pool for the first time all summer, and Wilson shoots him there, then shoots himself.
Why it matters: Gatsby dies still waiting for a phone call that never comes, and the dream the whole novel has been building ends in his empty pool.
The quotes
1 quotes in this chapter.
They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.
Nick · Chapter 8 · honesty · class
The only compliment Nick ever gives Gatsby. He says it across the lawn. Gatsby dies anyway.
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