Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.
Chapter 5 · Narrator
Context
Gatsby has slipped out of Nick's cottage and circled around to the front door, knocking formally rather than simply waiting inside for Daisy. When Nick opens the door, he finds Gatsby drenched, terrified, and almost paralyzed with anxiety at the impending reunion.
Analysis
The simile 'pale as death' and the image of hands 'plunged like weights' transform Gatsby from the confident host of lavish parties into a figure of near-comic vulnerability—weighted down and immobilized by the very desire that has driven all his actions. The adverb 'tragically' elevates what is essentially social nervousness to the register of fate and doom, foreshadowing that this reunion, however longed-for, contains the seeds of Gatsby's destruction.
How to Use in Essay
Useful for essays contrasting Gatsby's public persona of confidence and control with his private emotional fragility, or for analyzing how Fitzgerald uses physical description to externalize psychological states.