Here is a summary and analysis of The Great Gatsby, Chapter 5.

Hello again, old sport!


Chapter 5 is considered the hinge on which all the other chapters turn. If you look at the overall structure of the novel, there are four chapters that lead up to chapter 5, and four that follow it. So what happens here that’s so momentous?

Well, on the surface, Gatsby gets reunited with Daisy. We’ll talk more about this reunion, but under the surface you need to pay attention to what this reunion represents. For the first four chapters, Gatsby has “dreamed” of finding Daisy, and he actually does in Chapter 5. So chapter 5 is the chapter where the “dream” turns into the “reality,” where the “ideal world” crashes with the “real,” and we’re being set up to watch what happens when a little dream in a person’s head has the opportunity to become a reality.

This chapter begins immediately after the conversation Nick has with Jordan in chapter 4. As soon as Nick arrives home, he’s encountered with an anxious Gatsby eagerly awaiting Nick’s response to Gatsby’s story and request. Now, on the one hand, Gatsby has only asked Nick to invite Daisy over for tea; but on the other hand, he has asked Nick to help facilitate an extra-marital affair. What would you do? Nick’s response is predictable: he says “okay” and agrees to let the whole thing happen, without any sort of moral judgment or personal consideration. This confirms for us what we’ve already witnessed with Nick’s character, that he’s both “within and without,” witnessing what happens but not taking any particular moral stances - he sort of wisted along on the whims of his companions.

As a side note, twice during this chapter Gatsby offers Nick a sort of “side line” business engagement to earn extra money…Nick refuses this offer, but it makes us question what exact kind of business Gatsby is engaged in anyhow. Nick senses there’s something not quite right about the whole thing, considering Gatsby says it’s a “confidential” matter, and Nick even tells us that had he accepted the offer it would have been one of the crises of his life.

Anyway, there’s loads of light imagery associated with Gatsby in this chapter – when Nick arrives at his home in the beginning, Gatsby’s house is literally lit up in every single room, like it’s some sort of beacon to Daisy across the bay. As the chapter moves on, Gatsby seems to be glowing more and more as his relationship to Daisy gets rekindled. That word “glowing” is used directly in connection with Gatsby, as though his lifeforce itself is intimately connected with his reunion to Daisy.

But before it’s rekindled, Gatsby and Daisy need to actually meet up, which they do at Nick’s house one afternoon while it’s raining. What’s great about this chapter is that we see both Gatsby and Daisy in a much more raw, genuine version of themselves. If Gatsby is a persona or an act for the first four chapters, we probably get the closest to seeing the real him in this chapter: he’s a total nervous wreck because the girl he likes and has been dreaming about for five years is about to come over. How would you feel?

To prepare for the reunion he cuts Nick’s grass and sends loads and loads of flowers to Nick’s house. Finally, Daisy arrives, and we should be reminded that even though we’ve talked about Daisy in every chapter, we haven’t actually seen her since Chapter 1, and Nick reminds us immediately of Daisy’s voice, telling us “the exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”

So here is the moment that Gatsby has been looking forward to every day for five straight years…and what does he do? He runs out the back door, gets soaked in the rain, then gets himself together and comes to the front door, then has an incredibly awkward conversation and knocks over Nick’s clock. Nick can hardly even handle how awkward Gatsby is acting and excuses himself from his own house, telling Gatsby he’s acting like a “little boy” and assuring him everything will be fine.

After Nick leaves them alone for 30 minutes he comes back in, finds that they’ve hit it off really well, and Gatsby “literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.” On a side note, too, it’s at this same time that the rain stops and the sun comes out - it’s interesting how the weather mirrors the emotional arc of this chapter as well.

We do get a few hints about Gatsby’s business in this chapter again, but Gatsby holds it intentionally at arms length from Nick, and from us. In the last chapter he told Nick it was a “confidential” business, and here he sort of snaps at Nick when Nick directly asks what industry he’s involved in. We also have a peculiar glimpse of Gatsby on a phone call later, where he yells something to someone on the phone about needing a small town. It should strike us as not just mysterious, but perhaps a bit sinister to say the least....

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