The Great Gatsby: Ch. 8, pages 147-162

In the beginning of the chapter, Nick wakes up worried about Gatsby and visits him at his mansion. Nick tries to convince Gatsby to leave West Egg and go far away, but Gatsby reluctantly refuses, saying that he would wait for Daisy. Gatsby then tells Nick everything about his background; from Dan Cody all the way to Daisy's letters. The scene shifts to George Wilson and Michaelis, and George disappears from his garage on the motive to kill the man who had an affair with Myrtle. While Gatsby is in his pool, George Wilson comes up to him and shoots Gatsby and then shoots himself. 

Character: Gatsby

"If that was true he must have felt that he has lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream." (Fitzgerald 161)

Gatsby is a devious and narrow-minded man; nevertheless, he is the only character in the novel that sticks to his /her core values. In the past five years, Gatsby has only thought about Daisy. He carefully planned parties only with the aspirations that Daisy would come to one.  His narrow-mindedness made him only concentrate on Daisy, and once he lost his holy grail, which was Daisy, his hole world fell apart. Every single character besides Gatsby were corrupted by society by the end of the novel, but Gatsby was the only one who didn't change. After his dream of getting Daisy was clearly over, he still waited for her call, which ultimately decided his death.

Gatsby's role is essentially the whole plot. The plot revolves around him and his actions. He is the one who instigated Daisy's adulterous behavior. Before hearing about Gatsby, Daisy was an innocent and tolerant girl that did not seem to care about Tom's cheating, which is not the case by the end of the novel. Gatsby also brought the narrator to sympathize with him, making readers also sympathize with Gatsby because Nick is a trustworthy narrator.

Quote:
"His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes... " (Fitzgerald 147)

The quote stood out to me because it described Gatsby. His house mirrors Gatsby's self. In the beginning of the novel, people filled his house. The description by Gatsby to Daisy made readers stare in disbelief at the lustrous image of Gatsby's house, but the quote above says otherwise. The quote describes Gatsby's house as enormous, dusty, and empty, just like Gatsby. Once his sole goal disappeared, he turned into another Dan Cody, a man with money but no purpose.