The Great Gatsby

Gatsby: pages 85-96

This passage of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is almost painful to read!  Gatsby and Daisy reunite at last after more than five years apart.  They're closer than they have been in years, and yet they've never had MORE separating them from each other!  It's clear how much Gatsby adores Daisy; she seems to have the power to enchant even her cousin!  Throughout the tour of Gatsby's house, "He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes" (Fitzgerald, 91).  All he wanted was to please her.  He couldn't care less what the dozens of people at his parties thought of him or his home, but Daisy's opinion clearly means everything to him.  That's so different from Tom, who won't even acknowledge the fact that Daisy has original thoughts of her own! 

Daisy breaks into sobs at the sight of Gatsby's beautiful assortment of shirts, but that's not the reason for her sorrow.  I think it hit her all at once how much she had missed out on.  She was in the presence of a man who adored her and loved her more than life, while she would go home to a man who barely tolerated her and who was unfaithful.  Both Gatsby and Daisy must feel a sense of helplessness right now.