It is clear that as Nick is unable to sleep and feels he
needs to visit Gatsby to make sure he is OK, there is a definite change in the house.
Consider what Nick says:
His house had never seemed so enormous to me as
it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside
curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for
electric light switches - once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a
ghostly piano. There was an inexplicable amount of dust everywhere, and the rooms were
musty, as though they hadn't been aired for many
days.
What is emphasised
through this change is the vastness of the house - highlighting the emptiness of the
space inside but also, implicitly, the emptiness of Gatsby's life. The dust and
mustiness likewise reflect the fact that Gatsby's life and dream is over now - his house
and its state represents his life. Now that he has decided to take the blame for Daisy
for the death of Myrtle Wilson, he knows that all his hopes and ambitions have gone to
dust, just like his house.
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