The Great Gatsby - Chapter Eight

This chapter is broken down into eight different phases:

PHASE ONE
Phase one tells us how Nick couldn't sleep, so when he heard Gatsby arrive in a taxi he went out to see him.  Nick suggests that Gatsby should go away for a while, but he refuses. He then sees Daisy two days afterwards.  This phase shows a lot of change in pace, such as when Nick enters Gatsby's house, time seems to move quicker, 'tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano'. Not very detailed description in comparison to Fitzgerald's usual style, this shows how they're rushing and on edge, which sets the mood for the rest of the chapter.  Later on, we see long descriptions about Gatsby's feelings for Daisy, which, considering Nick is out narrator, Gatsby must have told him. This shows how Gatsby and Nick's relationship is developing, and shows how close they are.

PHASE TWO 
In phase two, Gatsby explains to Nick how he can't help loving Daisy, and gives details of the night they spent together before he went away to war. Once again time jumps (which is a recurring theme in Fitzgerald's style), but this time it jumps backwards to their last night, rather than forwards. In Gatsby's speech in this phase, there are a lot of pauses, for example 'I key different things from her....well there I was.' This shows how it's a stream of thoughts, giving Gatsby a sense of humanism that we have rarely seen from him.

PHASE THREE
Here we are given an insight into what Gatsby and Daisy were doing away from each other.  Gatsby was doing well in the war, and Daisy was partying, and looking for love, trying to replace Gatsby. Daisy was in an 'artificial world', just as her and a lot of the people in the book seem to be, nothing has really changed, it is all material.  'The force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan' shows Tom's personality, he demands attention and is a a very overpowering character. 

PHASE FOUR
In Phase Four, Gatsby and Nick are sat in Gatsby's house, where Gatsby questions Daisy's love for Tom. Time then jumps  back (similarly to the phase before) to when Gatsby came back from the war, and Tom and Daisy were on their honeymoon; Gatsby traveled to Louisville to relive the moments he spent with Daisy.  Time then returns to the present, where one of Gatsby's servants wants to drain the pool, Gatsby asks him not too, foreshadowing. Gatsby and Nick part ways.  Very vivid description of Gatsby's time in Louisville: 'He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him' shows how Gatsby remembers every detail, really sticks out to him.  'We were always thanking him for that - I and the others' Nick wondering if he really sticks out to Gatsby? Or whether he is just another one of Gatsby's party people.

PHASE FIVE
Nick receives a phone call from Jordan, he then tries to phone Gatsby but the line is busy with a phone call from Detroit. This is a very short phase, which is very different from the phase before. In phase four, there is a lot of vivid description, whereas in this phase there are very short sentences such as 'Very Well.' and 'It was just noon'. Nick is developing as a narrator.

PHASE SIX
This phase contains Nick's trip on the train where he passes the place that Myrtle's accident was.  Time jumps back to the just after the accident.  'Now I want to back a little and tell what happened at the garage after we left the night before.'  Almost as if he is remembering suddenly, and Nick is directly addressing the reader here, which breaks the fourth wall.  This is a technique used in drama to distance the audience from the story and the characters, Fitzgerald trying to stop the reader empathizing with the characters?

PHASE SEVEN
In this phase, the story carries on with what happened at the garage the night before.  This is the only phase where the story carries on from the previous one, shows a difference in this phase to the others, sticks out more to the reader.

PHASE EIGHT
This is the final phase of the chapter, in which Gatsby goes out to his pool and somebody shoots him.  Nick goes to his house after getting home from the station, they take Gatsby's body into the house and notice that Wilson is dead as well.  The past few phases have contained numbers and times, e.g. 'At two o'clock' almost like a countdown, reader beginning to expect something. 'I have an idea' narration changes from report like, authorial style, to speculation and doubt. Nick developing as a narrator.  Very descriptive 'faint, barely perceptible movement of the water' different to other major events which have no description at all and are very blunt.