The Great Gatsby
Chapter Nine
Learning Intentions
Identify the different viewpoints to
Gatsby’s death and relate this back to the
rest of the novel.
Understand how Gatsby and his father are
so different yet similar in different ways.
Consider the main message of the novel
through its ending and what comment
Fitzgerald is trying to make about life.
Summary
Listen to the audio and summarize the
chapter with 5 or 6 ‘headlines’.
Summary
Gatsby’s funeral take place, with his father
one of the very few mourners present.
Henry Gatz speaks with pride of his son’s
attainment.
Later, Nick contemplates the empty
mansion and ponders the significance of
Gatsby’s story.
The Funeral – Circle of Viewpoints
Nick finds, in the aftermath of the tragedy, that he
is ‘on Gatsby's side, and alone’. He has to take
on the role of organiser and next of kin.
We are now going to try the circle of viewpoints
thinking routine again.
You will each represent a different character and
give your opinion on Gatsby’s funeral and how
you feel about the lack of attendance and
whether you paid your respects.
The Funeral – Circle of Viewpoints
Prepare a description of your (character’s)
opinions and viewpoints of Gatsby’s
death.
1. Nick
2. Tom
3. Daisy
4. Meyer Wolfsheim
5. Owl Eyes
Big Question:
Why do you think Fitzgerald makes
Gatsby’s funeral and isolated and lonely
affair?
The Funeral
It is fitting that barely anyone attends the funeral. In death,
as in life, Gatsby is isolated. This serves to highlight his
unique capacity for hope, which sets him apart from
the other characters. It is not until this chapter that the
reader truly feels the profound loss of Gatsby, a
character who is simultaneously both noble and
corrupt. Fitzgerald makes us questions our own
perceptions of a hero: Gatsby should not be a hero, yet
he is. Despite his desperate attempts to be accepted
into this repugnant social strata, he is abandoned by all
who knew him and supposedly cared for him – most
notably Daisy and Wolfsheim. Also, Gatsby’s is
ultimately sacrificed, just like Jesus, to reveal an
important truth – that the dream is corrupt but the
aspiration of it is noble and worthwhile.
The Funeral
 The irony of Nick organising the funeral is that he has
only known Gatsby for three months. The people who
supposedly knew and loved him – Daisy, Meyer
Wolfsheim and Klipspringer – all disappear. Nick says ‘I
wanted to get someone for him’. He feels – like we do
– that Gatsby was a man terrified of being alone.
 He imagines Gatsby's corpse speaking to him: ‘Look
here, old sport, you’ve got to get someone for me.
You've got to try hard. I can’t go through this alone’.
 A further irony is that Owl Eyes is the only person from
the partygoers who attend his funeral – a man of no
vision and no capacity for understanding. Only the
blindest partygoers saw Gatsby's truth.
 This episode reinforces the idea of Nick’s solidity and
lack of judgement. Despite Gatsby's obvious faults, he
admires and respects his capacity for hope.
Gatsby’s Father
Mr Gatz is the complete opposite of his son.
In groups, find as many quotes as you can
which highlight these differences and
remember to analyse them.
Think about WHY Fitzgerald makes them
so different from each other.
Gatsby’s Father
A solemn old man, very helpless and dismayed, bundled
up in a long cheap Ulster… his eyes leaked
continuously… the glass of milk spilled from his
trembling hand… his eyes, seeing nothing, moved
ceaselessly about the room… they leaked isolated and
unpunctual tears.
There is a chaotic sense of disorder in his movement and
appearance. Unlike Gatsby, who can remain cool on a
blisteringly hot day, he continually reacts to his
environment. He ‘sees nothing’ and so is contrasted
with his son's ability to dream visions.
Gatsby’s Father
He holds out a picture of Gatsby's house for
Nick to see. Nick comments:
He had shown it so often that I think it was
more real to him now than the house itself.
In this way, the house is reminiscent of the
green light at the end of Daisy’s dock,
which was more truly representative of
Gatsby's love for Daisy than Daisy herself.
Gatsby’s List
The arrival of Gatsby’s father only serves to
remind us of the enormous scope and
scale of Gatsby’s journey and
transformation. He could not be more
different, both physically and in his
character for his father and we can
empathise a little more perhaps with
Gatsby’s assertion that “his imagination
had never really accepted them as his
parents at all.”
Gatsby’s List
 In pairs/threes, look at Gatsby’s list and discuss
the implications of it. What does this tell us about
the young James Gatz and his pursuit of the
dream? Look closely at the items on the list and
try to relate this to the main themes of the novel.
 Now in groups, discuss your ideas and look for
any similarities/further interpretations that you
could give to the rest of the class.
Gatsby’s List
Unlike Daisy, who was casual about her wealth
and privilege, Gatsby really does epitomise the
true promise of the dream. The pitiful list he
produces illustrates how even from such a
young age James Gatz believed in the dream as
a tangible, achievable ideal. This again reminds
us of Gatsby’s capacity for self-improvement and
vision. His elocution lessons and determination
to read “one improving book…a week”
highlights though that he had a notion of the
class divisions within America – something
which in itself is a paradox.
Rain
The weather at the funeral again reinforces the
depressing conclusion to the novel. Gatsby’s
summer is over, and rain pounds down on the
funeral procession:
The procession… stopped in a thick drizzle beside
the gate… horribly black and wet.
Nick hears someone murmur ‘Blessed are the
dead that the rain falls on’. This could perhaps
refer, again, to the idea of the cleansing or
transforming properties of water. In death, has
Gatsby realised the emptiness of his dream?
The Return to the West
Nick’s decision to return to "my middle west”
– the mid-west of small town America the pulsating heartland of the new world –
a place of picket fences, apple pie and
wholesomeness only serves to contrast
with the cruel, cold, calculating
heartlessness of the East coast. Nick is
repulsed by his experiences and it is only
from returning home that he can hope to
make sense of the events of the summer.
The Return to the West
In groups, think about the purpose of this
novel.
Why do you think Nick has written it?
Consider his actions on the last night in
West Egg.
How does Nick feel about Gatsby now?
The Return to the West
 The rubbing away of the profanity at Gatsby’s house is a literal
attempt to clear Gatsby’s name, while the book fulfils the same
function on a larger, metaphorical scale.
 The entire novel, in fact, is a reflective tribute to his three-month
friend, a man he admired despite his faults, and despite the vicious
gossip of his contemporaries.
 As he leaves, Nick reflects on the ‘huge incoherent failure’ of
Gatsby's house, a description which could be equally applied to
Gatsby himself. The incoherence and failures of Gatsby, however,
do not undermine his positive qualities – his idealism, his capacity to
hope and dream, his gift for self-invention and his instinctive sense
of nobility.
 His assertion that this “is a story of the West after all” shows a
level of self awareness and honestly not displayed by any other
character. Indeed, Nick is the only character in the novel who is
able to reflect and change because of his experiences.
The Dream Lives on…
This is the part of the novel where most
readers shed a wee tear! We are left
shocked and saddened by Gatsby’s death,
and feel anger at the ironic
misconceptions and manipulations behind
the scenes that led to his violent and
unjustified murder. But it is perhaps true to
say that, until the end, we don’t exactly
feel the loss of Gatsby himself.
Nick looks out across the Sound
It’s only when we see Gatsby's place in the context
of our world that we can see his life and death
as having tragic consequences. Gatsby may be
dead but in the final paragraphs, the climax of
the novel sums up poetically and profoundly the
impact of his life. Gatsby’s struggle, is the
struggle of all humanity and Nick again alludes
to the original pioneers on first glimpse of the
New World. At the end of the novel, Nick subtly
summarises Gatsby's place in the failure of the
American Dream:
Nick looks out across the Sound
…as the moon rose higher, the inessential houses began
to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old
island that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes – a
fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees,
the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had
once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all
human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man
must have held his breath in the presence of this
continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he
neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last
time in history with something commensurate to his
capacity to wonder.
Nick looks out across the Sound
Here, Nick reflects on the beauty and wonder of America at
the dawn of modern civilisation. When the first Dutch
settlers arrived, they would have been awestruck by the
rich natural beauty and promise of the continent.
Nick compares this old, untainted natural world with the
waste of the modern world – note how he refers to the
houses on the Eggs as ‘inessential’ and ‘melting
away’. Yet again a parallel is drawn between Gatsby and
the original pioneers. Just like them Gatsby hoped for
something better, something to live up to his “capacity
for wonder”.
Nick looks out across the Sound
Here, Nick reflects on the beauty and wonder of America at
the dawn of modern civilisation. When the first Dutch
settles arrived, they would have been awestruck by the
rich natural beauty and promise of the continent.
Nick compares this old, untainted natural world with the
waste of the modern world – note how he refers to the
houses on the Eggs as ‘inessential’ and ‘melting
away’. Yet again a parallel is drawn between Gatsby and
the original pioneers. Just like them Gatsby hoped for
something better, something to live up to his “capacity
for wonder”.
Nick looks out across the Sound
Nick further compares the early Dutch settlers with
Gatsby, who must have felt the same
overwhelming wonder at the sight of Daisy’s
green light:
As I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world,
I though of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked
out the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had
come along way to this blue lawn, and his dream
must have seemed so close that he could hardly
fail to grasp it.
Why does the dream fail?
In groups, prepare a class presentation
which focuses on why the dream has
failed. Think about:
Identify what Gatsby’s dream was
The value and worth of his dream
Was his dream ever possible?
Was Gatsby dream about the future?
Gatsby’s Dream
Why did Gatsby fail to grasp his dream? There are several reasons:
His dream wasn’t worth grasping – Daisy did not love him in the real
sense of the word. Her pragmatism at key moments undermined
Gatsby's truer love. It was clear from the start that she would make a
solid connection with old money, and do anything to ensure the
stability of her marriage.
His dream was impossible – it was not there for the taking. Like the
Dutch settlers’ view of the old New York, it was a vision of promise
that could never be realised. Just as Gatsby looks to Daisy as a
symbol of the repeated past and cannot accept the consequences of
her present life, the early settlers’ in America would not have been
able to predict the catastrophic changes to American values in
further centuries.
Gatsby’s Dream
The American Dream became corrupt the
moment it was realised. The pure,
untouched beauty of that original vision
disappeared and made way for
consumerism, industrial development,
power struggles and class systems. The
original dream was destroyed by its future.
Gatsby’s Dream
Gatsby’s dream only exists as a figment of the past –
he craves the idea of re-living the events of his first
summer with Daisy, over and over again, constantly
denying to himself and others the inevitability and
consequences of Time. He and Daisy only exist in the
past. As such, Nick observes:
He did not know that [the dream] was already behind him,
somewhere back in the vast obscurity of the city.
Gatsby's dream has been left behind in time, in the midwest. This is why he realised that he had lost the ‘old
warm world’ just as he died.
Gatsby
So Gatsby is the man we should admire and cheer for. In a
world with no dreams left to dream, he carries on
believing in the future. He may be a deluded fool, but at
least he risks everything for the promise of fulfilment.
The reader is left with a poignant picture of Gatsby
battling against the current of Time, searching out his
hopeless dream in the last famous lines of the novel. We
feel a tremendous sense for empathy for Gatsby, as Nick
describes how we all run along with him. We instinctively
feel that the world needs a man like this, those who are
unafraid to reach for dreams that are essentially beyond
them:
Gatsby
Gatsby believed in the green light, the
orgiastic 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.