Essay about Great Gatsby: How Does Fitzgerald Tell the Story in Chapter 7

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How does Fitzgerald tell the story in Chapter 7?
The Great Gatsby is a tragi-romance novel that was written by F.Scott Fitzgerald after being influenced by his wife, Zelda’s, frequent breakdowns. Fitzgerald writes the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ to be narrated in the perspective of the character Nick Carraway who writes about his past summer in New York of 1922. However, he is an unreliable narrator to the novel as he tells the story of events where he wasn’t present-this links into a theme in the book: that is a ‘story about telling stories’. However, occasionally in the novel Fitzgerald adopts the voice of another character; for example, in chapter 7 he adopts the voice of the character Michaelis (who runs a coffee shop in the Valley of Ashes next to George Wilson’s garage). He appears little in the novel but is so influential to the events in the destination of the novel as he witnessed the hit and run of Myrtle Wilson by the ‘car of death’. Fitzgerald adopts the voice of Michaelis for a little while in chapter 7 because he is the only witness to the death of Myrtle Wilson and gives his opinion at trial. Chapter 7 is the climax to the ‘tragic’ bit to the ‘tragi-romance’ novel as Fitzgerald brings all the events that he had already established together. To add, this chapter is not told in chronological order because Fitzgerald sets it out in an episodic fashion because of myrtles death and the use of different narrators in this chapter.
The establishment of this chapter begins with Nick describing having lunch at Daisy’s with Jordan, Gatsby and Tom. Nick describes the afternoon as being ‘broiling’ and Fitzgerald’s use of pathetic fallacy suggests the anticipation of violent and heated emotions that come in the climax of this chapter. The first foreshadowing sign of an argument is seen in the first few moments of Nick entering the house, when Daisy moves over to Gatsby and kisses him on the mouth. This adds tension to the scene as Tom is only in the other room and kissing someone in the 1920’s time period is seen as ‘making love’. The reader soon sees Tom’s realisation of his wife’s affair with Gatsby and ‘that he was astounded’. Knowing Tom has a violent temper – previously seen when he lashes out at Myrtle – the reader fears trouble. After Tom’s exposure of Gatsby as a bootlegger, Gatsby’s sinister criminal activities prove to be the cause of Daisy’s ‘lost voice’ and Gatsby’s loss of Daisy as he loses control over himself; the quote “he looked as if he had just killed a man” signifies to us, the reader, that he has killed his
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