Word: 'Threadbare'

Context: This chapter sheds light on Gatsby's seemingly far-fetched past with his heroic exploits and posh upbringing, which Nick finds all too 'threadbare'. He is only convinced when Gatsby's evidences his past with a photograph and medal.

Meaning: Frayed; becoming thin and tattered with age and wear

- This picture depicts the sadness that lurks behind the pleasurable desires that each Gatsby character consequentially faces - Tragic life of Tom in Chapter 7

- This is the turning point since it slowly envisions the destruction that greed brings; the follies of being hopeful and naive - the end of the American Dream that they all wanted 

- This chapter sees Tom lose his wife Daisy to an affair with Gatsby and feeling emasculated 

- As well as losing (the death of) his mistress, Myrtle, through an accident , destroying every hope and desire he ever had; everything that he had control over 

- Throughout the chapter we realise how Tom feels disconnected from the rest of the group, and how this foreshadows this strong, stern and traditional representation of a masculine man, slowly breaking down into somebody who feels small - losing control of everything that he once had 

- His traditional machismo demeanour and stature (a character trait that men were optimally seen as successful and strong just like Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire; a play based in the same Jazz Age era) represents Old Money that slowly disintegrated 
-  Loses its meaning since everything crashed and burned just like his relationship to Daisy and Myrtle (quite literally) 

- Linked to the fall of the American Dream in the 1920s that lead to the Great Depression in 1929 (Wall Street Crash) since this over-expenditure and splurge for desirable goals were temporary; likened to Tom’s lifestyle which was not going to last forever