What detail in this chapter signals the end of Gatsby’s spell as Trimalchio?

“It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night – and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over.”

Gatsby changes some of his staff members to ensure secrecy regarding Daisy’s visits. It also appears that he has stopped hosting his lavish parties, either because he has already found Daisy and doesn’t need them, or because he noticed she didn’t like them. The lack of light also leads us into the darker chapters of the novel, concerning death and lost love.

During the heated confrontation, which takes place on one of the hottest days of the summer, Tom reveals Gatsby’s dealings as a bootlegger and calls him ‘Mr Nobody From Nowhere”, causing him to lose Daisy irretrievably.

What links are made between detail here and previous detail in the narrative?

There is reference to colour and light, such as that of the yellow car which comes to symbolise death in the novel. Michaelis, Wilson’s neighbour, initially tells the policeman it was light green.

“I must have felt pretty weird by that time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon” is how Nick remembers his first encounter with Gatsby after Myrtle’s death. There is also Gatsby’s system of Daisy turning the light on and off if she is in trouble with Tom. One of Nick’s last encounters with Gatsby concerns him “standing there in the moonlight – watching over nothing”