The Great Gatsby: Ch 7 pg 119-153

Chapter 7 begins with Gatsby not having one of his extravagant parties on a Saturday night. He has new servants at his house and they are friends of Wolfshiem. Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby go to the Buchanan’s on a hot, summer day. Tom suspects something’s going on between Gatsby and Daisy because she openly flirts with Gatsby. We are briefly introduced to Daisy and Tom’s daughter. She is dismissed and Daisy suggests that they all go into town. Tom, Nick, and Jordan ride in Gatsby’s car while Daisy and Gatsby ride in Tom’s car. Tom stops by Wilson’s garage for gas and finds out that the Wilsons are going to move. “His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate were slipping precipitately from his control.” (131) They all meet at a hotel and everything comes to a head. Gatsby insists that Daisy never loved Tom and she says she loved them both. We find out that Gatsby was a “bootlegger.” They all leave the hotel and see a bunch of cars in front of Wilson’s garage. Myrtle was hit by a car and killed instantly. It was Gatsby’s car, but Daisy was driving. Gatsby says that he will take the blame and he insisted that he waits outside the Buchanan’s house to make sure that Tom didn’t hurt Daisy. Nick sees Tom and Daisy talking. “They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.” (152-153)

Pammy Buchanan

“With a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined child held to her nurse’s hand and was pulled out the door.” (124)

Pammy is shy and has tiny hands. According to Daisy, she doesn’t look like Tom and has Daisy’s hair and shape of face. She wants affection from her mother.

Pammy is Tom and Daisy’s daughter. We’ve heard about her before, but this was the first time we have met her in the book. She is the one thing that keeps Tom and Daisy together and she doesn’t even seem that important to them. They dress her up like a doll. She is just a part of the image of the perfect family that Daisy is trying to portray.

“’She’s got an indiscreet voice,’ I remarked. ‘It’s full of-----‘ I hesitated. ‘Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—and that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbal’s song of it…. High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl….” (127)

This quote stood out to me because it perfectly describes how Daisy is on the inside. She is completely carefree and doesn’t have to work. She has Tom who provides for her and he knows that she loves his money. She puts on this show that her life is absolutely perfect. She has a gorgeous house and the “perfect family,” but that is all material things to her. She loves to put on a show and pretend that everything is wonderful, as if it was written for a movie. She only cares about the material things in life and wants her life to be played out like the movies. The thing about movies is that the script is completely fake.