I do this
chapter post for WEM project; see also previous chapter 1, chapter 2 – 3, chapter 4 – 5, and chapter 6 - 7.
The
revenge
Gatsby told
Nick how he met and fell in love with Daisy; apparently Gatsby loved the ideas
of Daisy more than the girl. He courted her and gave her false hope that he was
at the same level with her. Gatsby went to war and tried to make him rich, but before
he could come back, Daisy had decided to marry Tom Buchanan who could give her
security. Nick is finally breaking up with Jordan Baker who he includes in the
‘rotten crowd’ together with Daisy and Tom. Meanwhile Wilson, who is still
shocked from his wife’s death, finally concludes that it’s the yellow car’s driver
who has killed Myrtle; he goes to Gatsby’s mansion and shoots him before
killing himself.
The
American dream
Despite of
the crowd that always comes to Gatsby’s parties every weekend, nobody seems to
care about his death except Nick, who takes care of the funeral preparation.
Gatsby’s father comes, and completes the story of how Gatsby was always
discipline and focus since he was very young. Nobody attends Gatsby’s funeral
except his father, Nick and another person. Few months later Nick meets Tom,
and from him Nick gets the final piece of Gatsby’s murder mystery. Apparently
Wilson has come to Tom, as he thought Tom was the driver of the yellow car. Of
course Tom said that it was Gatsby who drove the car, and that’s how Wilson had
found Gatsby. Being disgusted of the Eastern moral decay, Nick finally decides
to return home to the West, but not after he reflects Gatsby’s faith, in which
Fitzgerald concluded how he thought about the American dream.
 |
| Illustration of Carey Mulligan as Daisy |
Buchanans
the cowards
It is so
annoying to see how the Buchanans just ran away from the crime scene, and not
even saying anything to Gatsby. I’m wondering whether Daisy told Tom the truth,
that it is she who had driven, not Gatsby. I believe so, and that’s why they
ran away so quickly (when Wilson came, they were just about to leave). And how
could Daisy did not even call Nick to at least say her sympathy for Gatsby’s
death? So, I’m very glad that Nick refused to shake hand at first when he met
Tom; just let him know that he is a low-disgusting creature!
“They were careless people, Tom and
Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their
money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together,
and let other people clean up the mess they had made….”
Favorite
passage
This passage
from The Great Gatsby has been one of my favorite ending quotes…
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the
orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but
that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. .
. . And one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.”
It is full
of cynical expression and irony, yet melancholy and, in a way, beautiful. It is
confusing at first, with the contradictions—future
that recedes; we beat on but borne back
ceaselessly. But in the end I realized that that was what Fitzgerald wanted to
point out. I think it expressed how Fitzgerald saw his country at that moment.
Just like Gatsby, Americans have been struggling to reach their dream, and when
they thought they were about to reach it, it suddenly eluded them because they
dreamed something pure that was already in the past; they did not realize that
everything has changed to the worse. They pursued prosperity, but on the other
hand, their moral have been corrupted.
~~~~~~
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