The Great Gatsby - Chapter 9

'The Great Gatsby' Reading Log - Chapter 9

Key Events

- Nick tries to find people to go to Gatsby’s funeral – so many people went to his parties but no one is willing to go to his funeral

- There is a phone call from Chicago for Gatsby

- Gatsby’s dad turns up for his funeral – he is amazed at what his son has achieved

- Klipspringer rings the house and asks Nick to get someone to send over his tennis shoes

- Nick goes to New York to talk to Wolfshiem – he can’t go – the world has changed him and what he used to do, doesn’t happen anymore

- Gatsby’s dad shows Nick his list to better himself – he had determination and was ready to do anything to achieve the American Dream

- It’s raining the day of the funeral – sets the scene

- Owl Eyes turns up to the funeral – one of Gatsby’s only loyal ‘friends’

- Nick talks about waiting in train stations during the holidays when he was younger

- Nick goes back to the Mid West – sick of the East and its corruption

- Nick meets Jordan and she tells him he is dishonest

- Nick sees Tom and finds out Tom told Wilson about Gatsby

- Nick looks at the green light

- He thinks about how the island must have looked like to the sailors that came to the New World

- Gatsby was trying to run towards the dream when it was behind him – he was living in the past

Significant moments

- The phone call from Chicago confirms that Gatsby was involved in illegal activities – more than owning drug stores

- Nick talks about a painting where a woman is being carried into the wrong house – no one cares or knows her – like Gatsby when he died

- Tom told Wilson that it was Gatsby’s car that hit Myrtle – he was responsible for his death

- Fitzgerald presumes that people will still chase the American Dream – despite its corruption and negative effects in the novel

Scenes and places

- The Middle West – wholesome – innocent - pure –

- ‘the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow’ – holly and lights symbolise the security of home – simple imagery – contrasts to Gatsby’s parties – Gatsby’s is a disarray of colours but when the lights dim, people leave and leave him lonely – the real dream is in the Mid-West – into the cosy paradise that contrasts with the harsh East

- The East – represents materialism – corruption – superficial

- ‘after Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction’ – it has made him see how shallow and empty people are there…