They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity.
Chapter 7 · Narrator
Context
After Tom dismisses Gatsby and sends him off with Daisy, Nick describes their departure from the Plaza Hotel room. Gatsby and Daisy leave silently, diminished and spectral, as though they have already ceased to fully exist in the world of the living.
Analysis
The simile 'like ghosts' proleptically associates Gatsby with death, while the phrase 'even from our pity' marks a devastating exclusion—they have become so insubstantial that they cannot even serve as objects of compassion, denied even the dignity of being pitied. The accumulation of passive participles—'snapped out, made accidental, isolated'—strips Gatsby and Daisy of all agency, rendering them as effects rather than causes, objects acted upon by forces they no longer control.
How to Use in Essay
Suitable for essays on how the novel gradually transforms Gatsby from a figure of vitality into a ghostly absence, or for analyzing how Tom's victory operates by rendering his opponents socially invisible.