Discussion Topic
The Significance of Heat in The Great Gatsby
Summary:
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the oppressive heat to symbolize the simmering tensions and emotions among the characters. The hottest day of summer coincides with the climax of the novel, highlighting the characters' escalating passions, conflicts, and revelations. The heat mirrors and exacerbates their emotional turmoil, leading to critical confrontations and decisions. This setting intensifies the narrative, reflecting the characters' discomfort and foreshadowing the impending breakdown of relationships and dreams.
In Chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby, what is the metaphorical significance of "hot"?
The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer. As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon.
Fitzgerald is using imagery to help his reader create a mental image of the world he is describing. He describes the heat and the way that things look in the heat. The "shimmering" effect can often be seen on a hot day. Things appear to glisten and shine like the surface of water. Everything seems to sag and hiss in the heat of the midday summer sun. Even the whistle Fitzgerald describes as hot because it's sound and appearance would seem to be steamy on such a day. Perhaps the whistle sounds tired or out of breath. Fitzgerald tells us the whistle sounds hot. This use of imagery and personification allow the reader to connect with the passage. The meaning of the word "hot" is therefore defined by the individual reader.
References
In The Great Gatsby, why does Fitzgerald emphasize the heat?
Because of the stifling heat, everyone seems to drink...
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even more than they might normally, and this is not a good thing considering the palpable tension that exists between various members of the group. Further, the heat makes everyone a little desperate and irritable. For instance,Daisy cries out,
"But it's so hot [...] and everything's so confused. Let's all go to town!"
The heat seems to make her restless and muddles her thinking. She wants to escape it, but there is no escape. She wonders what they'll do with themselves all afternoon, let alone "'the day after that, and the next thirty years.'" Such a question makes it seem as though she feels trapped, confined by the heat (and, it seems, by her marriage as well). As they prepare to leave for the city, Daisy says that "It's too hot to fuss." She is anxious and just wants things to feel easy.
Nick describes the heat as "oppressive, as a "relentless beating heat," and Jordan calls it "baking heat." These are hardly pleasant descriptions, and they seem to mirror the emotional tenor of the group, especially once Tom becomes aware that his wife is having an affair with Gatsby and that George Wilson will be putting an end to his affair with George's wife, Myrtle. The tension is likewise oppressive and relentless, and it seems only to increase more and more as they all talk, even more so after Tom begins to taunt Gatsby. The heat, in a way, mirrors the mood of the characters, but it also seems to worsen their moods, to make the chance of an outburst, a confrontation, that much more likely.
In chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald emphasizes the heat wafting over the city, pointing out repeatedly that conditions are both boiling and scorching. Fitzgerald emphasizes the heat in order to symbolize the heated emotions (passion, anger, etc.) that the characters are secretly harboring and which eventually break out in a heated debate. At this point in the novel, Tom has been involved in an adulterous relationship with Myrtle Wilson for some time, while Daisy has been having an affair with Gatsby. As such, there's quite a lot of tension lurking below the surface. When Daisy, Tom, Gatsby, Nick, and Jordan travel to a hotel room in the city, this tension escalates, as Tom confronts Gatsby about his affair with Daisy, and a general argument breaks loose. This argument is a key turning point in the novel, as it sets up Gatsby's loss of Daisy and his coming downfall. Additionally, it mirrors the scalding weather, as the characters' heated emotions get the better of them and cause irreparable rifts in their relationships.
Why does Fitzgerald link character behavior to the summer's hottest day in The Great Gatsby?
By placing the novel’s pivotal scenes in a hot day near the end of summer, F. Scott Fitzgerald not only sets the oppressive mood but provides reasons for some specific characters’s behavior (chapter 7). Although they all certainly know that Manhattan will be far hotter than West Egg, by late August they are bored with Long Island and think the city will provide some distractions. The end of summer and the end of that day are also associated with the end of life.
Nick mentions both Daisy and himself as confused by the heat. She gets moody, wondering about their future: “What’ll we do with ourselves . . . the next thirty years?” Not everyone realizes she is referring to her and Gatsby.
“But it’s so hot,” insisted Daisy, on the verge of tears, “and everything’s so confused! Let’s all go to town!”
As they make their plans, she tells Gatsby that he “looks so cool,” and the way she says it tips Tom off about their involvement. His suspicions are confirmed when she decides to ride in Gatsby’s car, leaving Tom to take Nick and Jordan. The “oppressive heat” grows along with the suspense about Tom’s next actions, as he has already been shown to be violent.
The tables are turned when they stop for gas, and Nick realizes that Wilson knows Myrtle is having an affair, but he does not suspect Tom. The references to the heat increase, as Nick remarks on its effect: “The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me.”
Once they get to the Plaza suite, the heat and the impassioned atmosphere become synonymous. Soon Tom and Gatsby are locked into their vicious arguments over Daisy, and she withdraws as she realizes that a life with Gatsby would take her far out of her social comfort zone, even into his criminal connections. Tom’s relentless cruelty is manifested when he insists she ride back with Gatsby. In the other car with Tom and Jordan, Nick ruminates on age, on the prospect of them all being over thirty. As the sun starts to drop, they make their way back to Long Island: “So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.”
How does the setting in this passage from The Great Gatsby reference heat?
The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer. As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon. The straw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion; the woman next to me perspired delicately for a while into her white shirtwaist, and then, as her newspaper dampened under her fingers, lapsed despairingly into deep heat with a desolate cry. Her pocket-book slapped to the floor.
The passage indirectly reflects the heat of the passions building between Gatsby and Daisy and the affair between Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson. Chapter 7, which includes this passage, also records Tom's realization that Daisy is having an affair with Gatsby, George Wilson's understanding that Myrtle is being unfaithful (although he doesn't know who her lover is), and the car accident that kills Myrtle.
The woman on the train sitting next to Nick, who "perspired delicately for a while into her white shirtwaist," is described in almost the same terms as Myrtle in the immediate aftermath of the accident - "when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp with perspiration..."
The suspicions and accusations and recriminations come to a white-hot climax in the New York City hotel room that afternoon, as Tom confronts Gatsby, Gatsby tries and fails to get Daisy to renounce Tom for him, and Daisy begins her reluctant withdrawal from Gatsby in the face of Tom's revelations. Just as the "train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight," truth begins to shine for the characters.
How is character behavior in The Great Gatsby linked to the hottest summer day?
In chapter seven of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the tense and tangled relationships in this novel all manage to collide, and they do so on an extremely hot summer day. That connection is no coincidence.
This unbearably hot day "was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer." Daisy has invited Gatsby and Nick to come over for lunch, and Nick knows immediately that "[s]omething [is] up." On Nick's train ride over to the Buchanans, we hear and see ample evidence that it is hot and the heat is affecting everyone. People are tense and suspicious, and this foreshadows what is to come. At the house, everyone is rather sluggish; however, as soon as Daisy sends Tom out of the room, she goes to Gatsby, kisses him, and murmurs that she loves him. Trouble is brewing.
Of course we know that Tom has an epiphany at this luncheon. When Daisy tells Gatsby he looks "so cool" (an inverse connection to heat), Tom can hear the love in Daisy's voice (that voice which has the power to move people). Once Tom has this knowledge, the already-hot day becomes even more heated.
Tom gets more arrogant and pushy, Daisy gets more flirtatious, and Gatsby becomes more strained; Jordan and Nick just go along for the ride, literally. They all decide to go to town, and on their way Tom, Nick, and Jordan make a stop which gets even more events spinning into action on this stifling hot day. Nick says:
The relentless beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I realized that so far his suspicions hadn't alighted on Tom. He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick
Tom is struck hard by the news that the Wilsons will be moving; in the course of an hour or so, Tom suffers two losses and things are going to get worse, as is this unbearable heat.
In their hotel room things heat up even more, both literally and figuratively. Tom becomes the aggressor and Gatsby is unwilling to walk away; in fact, he wants to engage Tom and do battle for Daisy. When it comes right down to it, however, Daisy cannot be what Gatsby needs her to be. She is honest enough to say, "I did love him once--but I loved you too."
This marks the beginning of the end of this day. Tom is angrier, Gatsby is crestfallen, and Daisy just wants everything to be okay again somehow. Gatsby and Daisy drive off, and Daisy is so upset that she hits a woman with her car. Ironically, of course, she killed Tom's mistress, opening the way for him to give her his full attention, at least for now. Gatsby still dreams, but it is a hollow dream. Tom has won back Daisy, and they deserve each other.
The chapter is replete with references to the heat, and surely that is an apt setting for this chapter in which everything explodes and some things even die--Myrtle Wilson and Gatsby's dreams. These events would have all played out in some way, at some time; the overwhelming heat of this day certainly contributes to the drama and the tension of the actions by all the characters on this day.