Gatsby's Awkward Reunion with Daisy, Explained: acting like a little boy

What's really going on

The awkwardness is the point. Two people who once loved each other can barely look up, so the room does the talking: a knocked-over clock, tea nobody drinks, a mantelpiece repair promised "immediately." One line keeps announcing his own failure — "This was a mistake. This was a terrible, terrible mistake" — while the reply insists "Daisy's embarrassed too." What looks like comedy is really five years of bottled-up feeling arriving all at once. Stepping outside, the narrator admits he is again both inside and outside the moment, "guarding other people's secrets."

Theme

What you'll learn

• Use old sport as a warm greeting
• Hear Five years as counted waiting
• Invite with come over and show around
• Catch stiff I'm certainly glad talk

Listen for

• suits me — weak form
• in love with me — liaison
• speak to you — liaison