Write About Some of the Ways Fitzgerald Tells the Story in Chapter 5. Essay

Chapter Five is the pivotal chapter of The Great Gatsby due to the key event on which the novel is based: the meeting of Gatsby and Daisy. Before this chapter, the story of their relationship does not openly exist, however, afterward the novel is based around Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. The story is told in a very visual sense as the setting is described vividly in ‘pouring rain’. This is the day of Gatsby’s meeting with Daisy. The ‘rain’ is a negative use of pathetic fallacy, setting a negative tone before they have come together.   Fitzgerald uses tiresome vocabulary to describe the scene: the man in the garden ‘dragging’ the lawn mower and the ‘soggy whitewashed alleys’, of which Nick drove through. As the scene is remiss and tired looking, I think this reflects Nick’s feelings upon the help he is providing Gatsby.

Fitzgerald uses a tactful method for which Gatsby engages Nick into helping him meet Daisy. He takes him somewhere alone at an odd time of night, which is interesting because at ‘two o’clock’, everything will be deserted, with nobody around therefore Gatsby will expect Nick’s full attention. Gatsby, after ‘walking toward me’ (Nick), giving a mysterious sense, a ‘walk’, interpreted as a stroll could seem peculiar in dark surroundings, forecasting Gatsby wanting something. He orders Nick to ‘go to Coney Island’ with him. We could interpret this as Gatsby trying to persuade Nick to go to Coney Island in order for something in return; Gatsby may think he is doing Nick a favour by driving him away. We learn that Gatsby gets what he intended when Nick reassures Gatsby that he’ll ‘call up Daisy tomorrow and invite her over’. Through this, Fitzgerald is beginning the story of Gatsby and Daisy through the use the narrator’s vital part in getting them together, which is necessary in the way the story is told because there must always be a way for romance to come together, in this case, Fitzgerald has chosen the narrator to bring them together....