The ticking time bomb of Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy has exploded, but if I may stretch a metaphor, the shrapnel will spread far beyond the walls of the Plaza suite and will result in much damage and loss. Daisy is already beginning to slip away from Gatsby: “…with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away….” Tom feels so confident about his triumph that he suggests that Gatsby take Daisy home. Tom and Nick follow in Tom’s coupe, as Nick realizes he has just turned 30, “the promise of a decade of loneliness.”
Meanwhile, among the ashheaps, George Wilson has been keeping his wife Myrtle imprisoned above the garage until he can make arrangements to take her out West. She taunts her husband: “Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward,” and a moment later her life is “violently extinguished” when she runs out in front of Gatsby’s car. The description of ruptured body is startling in this otherwise dream-like book.
Tom and Nick stop, witness the scene, and gather enough information to determine that it was Gatsby’s car and that it didn’t even slow down after killing Myrtle. Later, Nick learns why — Daisy had been at the wheel. Gatsby’s main concern is still for Daisy; he’s worried that Tom will try some “brutality.” Again, he is firmly out of touch with reality.
