Great Gatsby

Chapter 8-9


Nick visited Gatsby for breakfast the next morning. Gatsby told Nick that Daisy never came outside the previous night. He told Nick about the early days of his relationship with Daisy. One night they slept together, and he felt he had married her. Then he left for World War I. Daisy waited for a while and then drifted away from him and into marriage with Tom Buchanan. Gatsby and Nick finished breakfast. At work that day, Nick fell asleep. The Jordan’s call woke him. Their conversation quickly turned unpleasant and one of them hanged up on the other. Next, Nick related what happened at Wilson’s garage after Myrtle’s death. Wilson spent all night talking to Greek man about Myrtle. Then Wilson said he had a way of finding out who was driving the car and later that morning disappeared from the garage. Later, Nick and some of Wolfsheim’s men working at Gatsby’s house discovered Gatsby, shot dead in his pool. Wilson’s dead body was close by lying in the grass.
The reporters and gossipmongers swarmed around Gatsby's mansion after his death. Nick tried to give Gatsby a funeral as grand as his parties, but found that Gatsby's enormous circle of acquaintances has suddenly evaporated. Many, like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, had simply skipped town, while others, including Meyer Wolfsheim and Kilpspringer, flatly refused to attend the funeral.
Nick went to Gatsby's father, who was helpless and distraught by the death of his son. The only other attendee at Gatsby's funeral was Owl Eyes, the melancholy drunk who was so astonished by Gatsby's library.
Nick met with Jordan Baker. She told Nick that she and he were both "bad drivers," and were therefore a treacherous combination. When Nick ended their affair, she suddenly claimed to be engaged to another man.
Months later, Nick ran into Tom Buchanan on New York's Fifth Avenue. Tom admitted that it was he who sent Wilson to Gatsby's; He showed no remorse, however, and said that Gatsby deserved to die.
Nick determined to return to the Midwest. Staring at the moon on his last night in West Egg, Nick imagined a primeval America, an America made for dreamers like Gatsby. Gatsby, for all his greatness, failed to realize that the American Dream was already dead when he began to dream it: his goals, the pursuit of wealth and status, had long since become empty and meaningless.

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