The Great Gatsby Questions (Chapter 2)

2. Nick meets Tom’s mistress when Tom takes Nick to the town and they stop on the way there at her house and then they go and have a party at the apartment Tom rents for Myrtle.

3. Myrtle looks lively and full of life. She walks sensually, looks really sexy, makes long eye contact with Tom and it is obvious that she was waiting on his arrival.

4. George has blond hair and light blue eyes; he is spiritless, anemic (lacking power, vigor, or colorfulness; weak), and only faintly handsome. He seems hopeful for something that Tom may bring (we’re led to believe it has something to do with a car that Tom was going to sell him).

5. “About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.”

Valley of Ashes is a dump and its rotting represents rotting American dream.

6. Tom attacks Myrtle because she mentioned his wife, Daisy. And Tom is very aggressive and cruel especially when he does not get what he wants.