Two years after the death of Jay Gatsby, Nick writes about and reflects on the events that surrounded Gatsby's funeral. Even though Gatsby is dead, extremely exaggerated rumors continue to circulate about him and about the nature of his relation to Wilson and Myrtle. Nick soon realizes that he is the only person still by Gatsby's side even though people never hesitated to attend his parties. When he attempted to call Daisy, he finds that she and Tom have left town. Nick starts to feel angry that no one wants to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Eventually Gatsby's father arrives and Nick sees the pride he takes in his son’s accomplishments. The only people at Gatsby's funeral are Nick, some servants, Henry Gatz, and Owl Eyes. The chapter Nick decides to leave the west after encounters with Tom, who reveals he told Wilson that the car that killed Myrtle was Gatsby’s, and told Wilson that Gatsby deserved to die. This leads Nick to the conclusion that Tom and Daisy are careless people who hurt and destroy others, knowing that their money will back them up. Nick finishes the story by comparing the struggles to shape ones future to being in a boat going against the current.
Chapters 7-8
At the beginning of the chapter, Nick notices that Gatsby has ceased having his iconic parties, and soon learns that it is because Gatsby no longer needs them to attract Daisy's attention. Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan and Nick all have lunch together and throughout the afternoon, Tom’s suspicions are amplified when he realizes that Daisy and Gatsby are having an affair and sets out to win her back. As Daisy has requested, they decide to go to New York for the day, and Nick rides with Jordan and Tom in Gatsby’s car, while Gatsby and Daisy ride together in Tom’s car. While stopping for gas, Tom and Nick learn that Mr. Wilson doesn’t know of his wife’s adultery however, he does not know who the man is. Upon arriving to New York, the group takes a suite at the Plaza Hotel, where Tom confronts Gatsby about his love for Daisy, which sparks a very intense fight between the two men. At the novel’s peak, Tom accuses Gatsby of bootlegging. This causes Daisy, who was in love with Gatsby hours earlier, to falter in her decision to leave Tom. Afterward the fight, Gatsby and Daisy drive home together in his yellow car, while the rest take Tom’s BLUE coupe home. However, on the way home Nick, Tom and Jordan come across a car accident in front of the Wilson’s gas station, in which Myrtle has been killed. It was Daisy driving Jay’s car that killed her, but Gatsby is willing to take the blame. At the beginning of chapter 8, Nick visits Gatsby for breakfast the next morning. Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy never came outside the previous night, but rejects Nick's advice to forget Daisy and leave Long Island. He tells Nick about the early days of his relationship with Daisy. He remembers how amazed he was by her wealth, her house, and even by the fact that men besides himself, had loved her. After the night he slept with her, he felt so in love as if he had married here, then he left for World War I. Daisy waited for a while and then drifted away from him and fell into marriage with Tom Buchanan. After this conversation, Wilson arrives seeking revenge from losing Myrtle. He accomplices this by shooting Gatsby, he then commits suicide. Nick shows up only to find the gruesome sight of the two dead bodies and tries to imagine and put into words what Gatsby's last thoughts may have been about. In Chapter 5, at this point I came to the conclusion that Gatsby wanted to reverse the clock, and go back in time so he could be with Daisy before she marries. He has “turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place,” referring to the symbol of a clock. Perhaps Gatsby has used up all this time dwelling in his fortune only to meet Daisy years later, wasting his aspirations away because of his success. Nick says that Gatsby “thrown himself into it with a creative passion, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted away.” Years later he realizes he has wasted time lusting over Daisy when he could have been loving her but this is all just an internal dream. The time quickly passed by as he attempted to achieve a status of high wealth, he wastes the opportunity to win over Daisy.
My initial conclusion that Daisy isn’t so innocent, can be related to the statement in chapter 6, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she go to Tom and say: I never loved you.” After she had obliterated four years with that sentence that they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken.” This amplifies the suggestion that Daisy doesn’t truly love Tom, she is a gold digger and only lusts over the wealth he possess. Meanwhile, she spreads her legs pretty far from him so if this relationship continues to “give and receive” as unhealthy and fake as it is, it will probably continue. I wonder what is so captivating about Daisy? Why does Gatsby have those feelings for her? “I wonder where in the devil he met daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.” This is when Tom finds out that Gatsby knows daisy.. hes very angry, jealous, and then makes that hypocritical comment. Its ironic because he is trying to make himself look like a good husband and care about his wife when yet he is running around with Daisy. After reading "Crack-Up" I alluded a lot of Fitzgerald's lifestyle and the deterioration he feels internally. Fitzgerald himself grew up living amongst the rich, but seeing as he wasn't of the same status, he felt like an outsider. He felt as if the rich inhabited a different world this can be seen in Gatsby. Fitzgerald incorporated the uppity, rich, lifestyle into his book and even modelled the two eggs after this place on Long Island (I found out through research). I also discovered while he was busy working on Gatsby, his wife, had an affair with a French aviator. Fitzgerald then incorporated the elements of that particular affair into the novel which came to be Tom and Daisy. As he refers to in "Crack- Up" Fitzgeralds' hobbies and favourite pastimes of attending parties and drinking are incorporated into Gatsby, as you can see throughout these particular chapters.
In chapter 3, Nick describes the lavish lifestyle and the incredible parties thrown at his neighbors mansion. Nick was clearly flattered to be personally invited to this party in particular. Nick and Jordan come upon a man with "owl-eyed spectacles" who they then spend time with, glancing through Gatsby's library. At around midnight, Nick meets a man who appears to be his age and served in the same division as him during the war. Before long he finds that the enigmatic man is Jay Gatsby. Still in shock, Gatsby leaves and shortly after Nick finds himself alone without Jordan, who was invited to speak to Gatsby. As husbands and wives argue about whether they should leave or not, Gatsby says goodbye to Nick. While walking home he finds "Owl Eyes" in the ditch with his car crashed. After doing his best to help "Owl Eyes," he returns home. Nick then describes that he did not solely just attend parties during that summer, but he also worked in New York. After Tom and Daisy's urging, he becomes romantically involved with Jordan Baker (I have concluded his homosexuality). Although he dislikes her dishonesty (judgment) , he puts it aside despite his belief that he himself is "one of the fewest honest people that he has ever known." Which is pretty ironic because he doesn't seem to be honest, infact he keeps most of his opinions to himself. Jay Gatsby says "....this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the country-side - East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety" I found this quote to be concerned with the idea that Fitzgerald as well as Gatsby, were able to attain a great amount of wealth but it cannot account to the education or social behaviors they have. Throughout chapter 4, Gatsby takes Nick out to lunch. He keeps mentioning that Jordan Baker must tell Nick something very important, a favour, while Nick and Jordan are at tea soon after. After an interesting lunch of meeting Gatsby’s friends, business partners, and a slightly awkward introduction between Tom and Gatsby, Nick takes Jordan out for tea. While on the tea date, Jordan reveals that Gatsby has been in love with Daisy his whole life and the favour Gatsby has asked of Nick is to invite Daisy over for tea so Gatsby and her can re-associate. Daisy can be portrayed as a pure being because of her name and symbolic impression I perceived that was Daisy is seen as innocent on the outside but on the inside she is actually well... "I aint sayin she a gold digger." Jay does many things to impress or see Daisy and hope that she will notice him. For example, the extreme parties Gatsby throws are all so Daisy will hopefully show up and Gatsby can be reunited with his one true love. |
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May 2015
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