Liar's Poker Chapter 8 Summary
Summary
His penchant for the game of Liar’s Poker, a game based on deception and bluff, exemplifies his unusual approach to business. Unfortunately for Gutfreund and his company, the firm overreached. Temple that she is not a liar, and relates her life story, trying hard to be moderate and humble. Temple and Helen talk of learned subjects, and Jane watches them in awe.
After the day’s traumatic events, Nick passes a sleeplessnight. Before dawn, he rises restlessly and goes to visit Gatsbyat his mansion. Gatsby tells him that he waited at Daisy’s untilfour o’clock in the morning and that nothing happened—Tom did nottry to hurt her and Daisy did not come outside. Nick suggests thatGatsby forget about Daisy and leave Long Island, but Gatsby refusesto consider leaving Daisy behind. Gatsby, melancholy, tells Nickabout courting Daisy in Louisville in 1917.He says that he loved her for her youth and vitality, and idolizedher social position, wealth, and popularity. He adds that she wasthe first girl to whom he ever felt close and that he lied abouthis background to make her believe that he was worthy of her. Eventually,he continues, he and Daisy made love, and he felt as though he hadmarried her. She promised to wait for him when he left for the war,but then she married Tom, whose social position was solid and whohad the approval of her parents.
Liar S Poker Chapter Summary
Gatsby’s gardener interrupts the story to tell Gatsbythat he plans to drain the pool. The previous day was the hottestof the summer, but autumn is in the air this morning, and the gardenerworries that falling leaves will clog the pool drains. Gatsby tellsthe gardener to wait a day; he has never used the pool, he says,and wants to go for a swim. Nick has stayed so long talking to Gatsbythat he is very late for work. He finally says goodbye to Gatsby.As he walks away, he turns back and shouts that Gatsby is worthmore than the Buchanans and all of their friends.
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Nick goes to his office, but he feels too distracted towork, and even refuses to meet Jordan Baker for a date. The focusof his narrative then shifts to relate to the reader what happenedat the garage after Myrtle was killed (the details of which Nicklearns from Michaelis): George Wilson stays up all night talkingto Michaelis about Myrtle. He tells him that before Myrtle died,he confronted her about her lover and told her that she could nothide her sin from the eyes of God. The morning after the accident,the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, illuminated by the dawn, overwhelmWilson. He believes they are the eyes of God and leaps to the conclusionthat whoever was driving the car that killed Myrtle must have beenher lover. He decides that God demands revenge and leaves to track downthe owner of the car. He looks for Tom, because he knows that Tomis familiar with the car’s owner—he saw Tom driving the car earlierthat day but knows Tom could not have been the driver since Tomarrived after the accident in a different car with Nick and Jordan.Wilson eventually goes to Gatsby’s house, where he finds Gatsbylying on an air mattress in the pool, floating in the water and lookingup at the sky. Wilson shoots Gatsby, killing him instantly, thenshoots himself.
Nick hurries back to West Egg and finds Gatsby floatingdead in his pool. Nick imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts, and pictureshim disillusioned by the meaninglessness and emptiness of life without Daisy,without his dream.
Analysis
Gatsby’s recounting of his initial courting of Daisy providesNick an opportunity to analyze Gatsby’s love for her. Nick identifiesDaisy’s aura of wealth and privilege—her many clothes, perfect house,lack of fear or worry—as a central component of Gatsby’s attractionto her. The reader has already seen that Gatsby idolizes both wealth andDaisy. Now it becomes clear that the two are intertwined in Gatsby’smind. Nick implicitly suggests that by making the shallow, fickleDaisy the focus of his life, Gatsby surrenders his extraordinary powerof visionary hope to the simple task of amassing wealth. Gatsby’sdream is reduced to a motivation for material gain because the objectof his dream is unworthy of his power of dreaming, the quality thatmakes him “great” in the first place.
In this way, Gatsby continues to function asa symbol of America in the 1920s, which,as Fitzgerald implies throughout the novel’s exploration of wealth,has become vulgar and empty as a result of subjecting its sprawlingvitality to the greedy pursuit of money. Just as the American dream—thepursuit of happiness—has degenerated into a quest for mere wealth,Gatsby’s powerful dream of happiness with Daisy has become the motivationfor lavish excesses and criminal activities.