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Car
Crash/Cars Cars and minor car accidents appear throughout the text of The Great Gatsby. Owl Eyes is in a car that goes into a ditch outside Gatsby’s house after the party in chapter 3; Tom gets into a wreck with a maid from his hotel shortly after marrying Daisy; Jordan and Nick discuss being a bad driver as a metaphor for being careless in life and with other people. The car wreck motif’s climax occurs when Daisy, driving Gatsby’s car, hits and kills Myrtle Wilson. The car crash that kills Myrtle parallels the events that lead up to the death of Gatsby’s dream. While driving past Wilson’s garage, Daisy sees Myrtle run out into the road, and into the path of the car. Another car is passing by in the other lane, and Daisy has a choice between swerving towards the other car or staying in her lane and hitting Myrtle. Daisy begins to turn the car towards the other lane, then decides to continue driving straight ahead. She chooses the path of least resistance for herself, but it eventually causes the most damage to those around her. Similarly, Daisy has the choice between “swerving” towards Gatsby, or staying on the straight, easy path of marriage to Tom. She begins towards Gatsby, but in the end she loses courage. Once again, taking the easy way out leads to more problems. The moment Daisy returns to Tom, Gatsby loses Daisy, and he has nothing to live for. When Mr. Wilson shoots Gatsby, trying to avenge Myrtle’s death, it is almost unnecessary. Gatsby is already dead inside. In the song “Understanding in a Car Crash” by Thursday, a car crash is symbolic of lost youth and broken dreams (“These broken windows, open locks, reminders of the youth we lost”). The car crash in The Great Gatsby embodies the loss of Gatsby’s dream and the chaos that ensues. For a full analysis of the connections between this song and the text of the novel, click here. For an illustration related to this theme, click here. Mattie
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