Chapter 9 - The Conclusion

The chapter was like the explanatory chapter for the whole book, it was one where every aspect of the book was explained to the reader by Nick. The story became more about the eastern life in this chapter rather than the death of Gatsby. This is the chapter where all the story became explicit and the themes were not hidden deep within the story of Gatsby's dreams. This is how all the themes of the book are now out on the open and how Nick tells us his views of the East. And finally it is proven that Gatsby does have a different past, and that it is not just a myth, when his father, Henry Gatz, comes to Gatsby's funeral. The funeral itself signifies the values of the eastern way of life, the way that no one that comes to Gatsby's parties show up at the funeral goes to prove that the eastern people are ungrateful and are very different from what Nick is used to. Even though the story goes on in the East, Nick says that it is the story of the West because all the main characters are originally from the East. This is a great observation by Nick because it reminds the readers of this fact and it shows them how they are actually changed by the East. How they have become people (except Nick) who only value money and nothing else, how they only care about themselves and not others.

The chapter also ties up loose ends in the story. Jordan and Nick's relationship has now come to an end and Jordan tells Nick that she is engaged to someone else, but for some reason it doesn't seem credible to me and it seems that Jordan did it just to make Nick jealous of her and for him to notice what he is missing out on. Then Nick sees Tom, who he hates at this point. Tom is the evil character in this book even though he says Meyer Wolfshiem is bad, it is Tom who is truly bad inside and he owes this badness to the Eastern way of life. Then as the final realization, Nick sees how careless people Tom, Daisy and Jordan really are. Fitzgerald uses the geography for the final time when he talks about how the island must have looked like to the people who first discovered and compares it to the beauty of Daisy and Gatsby's untouched relationship.

In the end, this was a sad chapter in seeing how lonely Gatsby really was. We take one last glance into his dark business life and see that something is also wrong there but it is proven that Gatsby is not someone who likes to do things the legal way. Despite the large amounts of rich people attending Gatsby's parties now, no one even wants to see Gatsby. Even though this all happens and sets the sad mood to the chapter, there is Gatsby's real father who shows us an artifact of his early life and tells Nick that he is proud of what Gatsby has done with his life, but again he is only happy with Gatsby's wealth. Nick going back West was the correct choice for him in these circumstances with Gatsby gone Nick has no one he can remotely relate to in his life.