Chapter Nine Flashcards
When does the narrative continue in Chapter Nine?
Two years later as Nick recounts the days shortly after Gatsby’s death.
Who prowled around the mansion looking for answers?
Reporters prowl the mansion looking for stories - rumours swirl about the relationship between Gatsby, Wilson and Myrtle.
What was Gatsby in both life and death?
Nothing more than a rumour spread by ‘new money’ socialites.
What does Nick find himself becoming?
The primary contact for all matters relating to Gatsby - no one else wanted to be.
What happens to Daisy and Tom?
They disappear with no forwarding address.
Why does Meyer Wolfsheim say he cannot help?
Because of pressing business matter.
How does Gatsby’s Father react to his death?
Henry C. Gatz sent a telegram three days after his death and arrives at his mansion a few days later.
What does Henry C. Gatz appear as?
Old, dressed in cheap clothing and devastated by his sons death.
What did Gatsby give up in his search for money?
His humble past and a father who truly loves him.
Who is Klipspringer?
A man who takes residence in Gatsby’s house without providing anything in return.
Klipspringer calls Nick and tells him what?
Nick tells him about the funeral but Klipspringer says he is busy at a picnic in Greenwich, Connecticut.
He does ask Nick to send him a pair of tennis shoes he has left at the mansion.
What does Nick do in an effort to assemble more people to attend Gatsby’s funeral?
He goes to New York to Wolfsheim’s sketchy office.
What does Wolfsheim discuss with Nick?
His early days of friendship with Gatsby - whom he claimed to have raised up ‘out of nothing.
Why does Wolfsheim refuse to attend the funeral after Nick tries to persuade him?
Wolfsheim has a policy of not getting mixed up with murdered men.
What does the stipulation that he raised Gatsby from nothing signify?
That money is everything.
When Nick returns to the mansion for the funeral, who is there?
Nick, Henry Gatz and to Nick’s surprise - Owl Eyes.
Why did Owl Eyes show up?
He pitied him as a ‘poor son of a bitch’.
What does Nick describe the story of The Great Gatsby as?
A story of the west as this is where Tom, Nick, Daisy, Gatsby and Jordan were not from the East.
What did Nick say about the East after Gatsby’s death?
That the East became haunted for him.
What has the American Dream changed into?
A search into the East instead of the West now.
What does Nick see the search into the East as?
Corrupt and deadening - people return to their past only to find ghosts.
Why does Nick go to Jordan’s house and what does he find out?
To set things straight with her - Jordan tells him she is engaged to another man although Nick does not believe this.
What does Jordan call Nick?
Being dishonest - Nick feels leaving angry and sorry.
To what extent was Nick corrupted by the East?
Nick saw his relationship with Jordan as superficial - however, she appears to have truly loved him.
What happens later that October?
Nick runs into Tom on fifth avenue - he refuses to shake Tom’s hand as he is told Tom told Wilson that Gatsby ran over Myrtle.
What does Tom say he cried over?
Giving up the apartment in which he conducted his affair with Myrtle.
What does Nick label Tom and Daisy as?
Nick does not tell Tom Daisy was behind the wheel but does label them as careless people who destroy things and then retreat back into their money.
Why is Tom’s corruption so evident here?
He sees himself as the victim for losing his mistress.
On his last night in West Egg before moving back to Minnesota, what does Nick do?
He walks down to Gatsby’s beach and looks over Long Island sound.
What does Nick wonder whilst he is on Gatsby’s beach?
How the first settlers to America must have felt staring out at the ‘green beast’ of the continent.
What does he imagine Gatsby feeling about the green light?
The same feeling as the first settlers as he realised the light across the bay belonged to Daisy Buchanan.
Why are both American Dream’s similar?
Both dreams were noble yet more complicated and dangerous than anyone could have ever predicted.
What does Nick describe Gatsby as?
A believer of the future and a man of promise and faith.
How does Nick compare everyone to Gatsby?
Moving forward with their arm outstretched like Gatsby on the shore - like boats beating upstream against the current, looking to the future but searching for the past.
Each American Dream is an effort to regain a past already lost.
