What is the turning point in The Great Gatsby?

The climax and turning-point can be said to occur at the same time in The Great Gatsby. On what might be the hottest day of the summer, Gatsby accepts an invitation to visit with Tom and Daisy Buchanan (Chapter 7).

"They take a suite at the Plaza Hotel for mint juleps. Finally, Gatsby tells Tom that Daisy doesn't love her husband, and they confront one another, as Daisy falters" (eNotes).

Up to this point in the story, Daisy's rekindled affair (so to speak) with Gatsby has been kept a secret. Gatsby has even gone so far as to fire a majority of his household staff so that no gossip would get out about Daisy's visits to his house. 

In this chapter, however, a confrontation ensues. Gatsby is brazen enough to accept Tom's invitation. Tom goads Gatsby and tries to draw him out. He succeeds. 

There are quite a few interesting details to pull out of this section of the novel. Gatsby insists here that Daisy disavow her love for Tom and say that she never loved him. She cannot do it. Also, Tom badgers Gatsby and Gatsby, for the most part, remains calm and cool. He is forced to be direct in ways that he usually is not, but Gatsby stands in stark, cool contrast to Tom's hot-headedness.

It is in this area that another very interesting detail comes forward. Gatsby becomes the hero of the tale, in a subtle and rather indirect way, while Tom becomes the out-and-out villain.

When Gatsby is pressed to clear up the confusion about whether or not he is truly an "Oxford man," he offers a very believable and humble answer. Nick reacts with great relief. In his narration, Nick says of himself that "I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I'd experienced before" (129). The honesty of spirit and genuine qualities in Gatsby here have risen above his many lines of deceit. It is Tom who is the bigger liar and the lesser man. 

After this confrontation, Daisy kills Myrtle by running her over yet does not turn her in. Tom then leads a distraught Wilson to Gatsby, knowing both that Daisy was the one who killed Myrtle and that Wilson would probably kill Gatsby. 

Tom's villainy is counter-poised with Gatsby's faith in Daisy and his faith in a certain romantic vision - the one that has effectively shaped his entire life. 

Thus, the story's turning point and climax is also the place where the character's are revealed in their ultimate meaning or a light is shined on their truest interior selves. 

What is the climax of The Great Gatsby?

The climax of a story brings closure to the main source of conflict. So, to find the climax, first determine what the main conflict is and then consider how you know that conflict is resolved. The climax is the point of high action that usually comes just before this and is typically situated near the end of the novel or story.

The conflict driving this novel is Gatsby's quest for Daisy's love. Most of the action in the book centers on his pursuit of her, which began long before this book's primary plot line. Gatsby has been acquiring wealth for years in an effort to ultimately be the man he thinks Daisy wants.

Near the end, we find Gatsby sitting outside Daisy's house, not inside it. He is protecting her from afar, still clinging to hope that she will return to him. However, it is clear to readers at this point that Daisy has chosen to remain with Tom. This is how we know that the conflict is over. How did we arrive at that conclusion?

Gatsby and Tom finally confront each other just prior to this scene, both trying to lay claim to Daisy. Gatsby presses Daisy to tell her husband that she loves Gatsby—not Tom. And Daisy finally admits that she loves them both. This takes Gatsby by surprise, and then Tom proceeds to rip apart Daisy's image of Gatsby by attacking his respectability:

"I found out what your 'drug-stores' were." He turned to us and spoke rapidly. "He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunts."

It's effective, and Daisy begins to visibly retreat from Gatsby:

But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.

Tom throws one final verbal punch, "allowing" Gatsby to ride home alone with his wife, to show what little concern he has that his wife will chose anyone but her husband.

Of course, Daisy then hits Myrtle on the way home.

This brings the beginnings of closure to Gatsby's dreams, as the reader realizes that Daisy will never be his. This section is, therefore, the climax.

One could argue that the climax comes in chapter 5, when Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are reunited in Nick Carraway's living room, a meeting that Gatsby asked Nick to set up unbeknownst to Daisy.

When Daisy realizes what the men have done, she is initially shocked, and all three of them are awkward and embarrassed. Nick leaves the two of them alone. It has been raining, and the sun comes out before he goes back inside. He hears an emotional discussion while he is out of the room, but now there is silence.

When he enters the living room, Nick describes Jay in similarly sunlike terms, as glowing and radiant. The couple has come to some agreement. Even though they are sitting physically separated on the sofa, Nick can tell that in some important way they are now together. They were

looking at each other as if some question had been asked, or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone.