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‘She's got an indiscreet voice,’ I remarked. ‘It's full of—'
I hesitated.
‘Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly.
That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . . [1]
After Tom observes lovers Daisy and Gatsby not bothering to hide their attraction to each other, Nick and Gatsby discuss Daisy’s manner of speaking. Nick’s finds her voice “indiscreet” (careless), and without disagreeing with Nick’s assessment, Gatsby describes her voice (approvingly) as being “full of money.” Daisy’s appeal to the man who has devoted his life to the pursuit of status and wealth has become quite clear. Read more about this passage in Quotes by Character: Daisy Buchanan (the Chapter 7 quote).
Then as Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered Gatsby’s caution about gasoline.
This brief reference to the Doctor T. J. Eckleburg billboard as Tom, Nick, and Jordan stop at George Wilson’s garage on their way into New York City is an example of foreshadowing, as is explained further in Quotes by Symbol: The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg (the first Chapter 7 quote).
[Wilson] had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before—and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.
Here, as Tom, Nick, and Jordan stop at George Wilson’s garage for gas, Nick draws parallels between Tom and George, who have both just learned of their respective wives’ infidelities.
That locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away.
The fateful stop at Wilson’s garage is discussed again in this passage—this time focusing on the symbolic role of the billboard that stares over the valley of ashes. This passage is further discussed in Quotes by Symbol: The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg (the second Chapter 7 quote).
Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.
Upon realizing he is now 30 years old, Nick makes this mawkishly mournful statement about reaching that specific milestone in life. While Nick’s quote seems to carry a strong hint of jest, 30 years old would have been considered older then (when average lifespans were shorter) than it does now. Elsewhere in the novel, Gatsby and Tom are described as being about 30 years old as well. The book’s author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was just under 30 when The Great Gatsby was published, which is probably not a coincidence.
But there was Jordan beside me who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age. As we passed over the dark bridge her wan face fell lazily against my coat’s shoulder and the formidable stroke of thirty died away with the reassuring pressure of her hand.
So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight.
Still reflecting on having just turned 30 years old, Nick finds a way to compare Jordan favorably to Daisy, as is discussed further in the explanation for Quotes by Character: Jordan Baker (the Chapter 7 quote).
Michaelis and this man reached [Myrtle] first, but when they had torn open her shirtwaist, still damp with perspiration, they saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long.
The aftermath of Myrtle’s violent death after she is struck by a speeding automobile outside of her husband’s garage is described vividly. The passage ends by informing us that Myrtle’s much-admired “vitality” has ceased to be.
[Daisy and Tom] weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale—and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.
While Gatsby anxiously waits outside Tom and Daisy’s house, Nick observes the couple alone together in their dining room and offers this observation which suggests that the tumultuous day they have both experienced has done nothing to change Tom and Daisy’s fundamental compatibility with each other.
