Question

excerpt from the great gatsby
by f. scott fitzgerald
chapter 1
in my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that i’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
he didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and i understood that he meant a great deal more than that. in consequence, i’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. the abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college i was unjustly accused of being a politician, because i was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. most of the confidences were unsought—frequently i have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when i realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table i remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and i was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet to avoid all eyes. i couldn’t guess what daisy and tom were thinking, but i doubt if even miss baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. to a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
the phone calls that tom receives during the dinner are an indicator that
he is trying to
prevent his
marriage from
failing,
he has important
business deals in
the works,
he and daisy are
not a happily
married couple,
he would rather be
in the city than on
the island.

Explanation:

To solve this, we analyze the context of Tom's phone calls in The Great Gatsby:

1. Recall Tom’s character and marriage dynamics: Tom is unfaithful, and the calls disrupt dinner (implying secrecy/infidelity, threatening the marriage’s facade).
2. Evaluate options:

• “He is trying to prevent his marriage from failing”: The calls hint at infidelity, which threatens the marriage. Tom’s secrecy suggests he wants to hide issues to keep the marriage (superficially) intact.
• “He has important business deals in the works”: The novel’s context (Tom’s affairs, not business) makes this unlikely.
• “He and Daisy are not a happily married couple”: While true, the calls indicate his efforts to hide threats to the marriage (not just the state of the marriage).
• “He would rather be in the city than on the island”: The calls relate to his infidelity, not location preference.

The phone calls Tom receives during dinner hint at his infidelity (a threat to his marriage). His secrecy and attempts to manage the situation suggest he is trying to prevent the marriage from failing (hiding the affair to maintain the marriage’s facade). Other options misalign with the novel’s context (business, location, or just the marriage’s state, not his efforts to save it).

Answer:

he is trying to prevent his marriage from failing