The Great Gatsby: Pages 121-132

It is among these pages F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, where the climax occurs. Chaos breaks loose in the triangle between Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Tom Buchanan, when Gatsby abruptly announces to Tom, “Your wife doesn’t love you…She’s never loved you. She loves me,” (Fitzgerald, 130). It is at this point that any hope of civilized discussion and understanding fizzles. Definitely the most dramatic and attention-drawing point in the novel, this encounter fulfills the role of the climax as the point of highest tension and uncertainty. At this point, I have no idea what is going to result from Gatsby’s confession. Daisy claims that she is going to leave Tom, but at this point I do not really know if she means it. Daisy is kind of a pushover, and it would not surprise me if she were to back down and choose the safe route by staying with Tom. Personally, I believe that Gatsby loves Daisy much more and would take much better care of her than Tom, who Daisy knows had an affair, but I think she is scared of the unknown. Fitzgerald writes that Daisy claims she never loved Tom, but that she says it “with perceptible reluctance,” (Fitzgerald, 132). The idea that she is reluctant to deny her love of Tom makes me wonder whether she truly does mean what she is saying, or whether she is just playing along and following Gatsby’s lead because she is scared. In these intense moments where all feeling comes out, I am not really sure what the future holds for these three characters.