Chapter 9

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Reading Task: Chapter 9

Summary of the Content:  
Nick tries to arrange Gatsby’s funeral, only to discover that almost every “friend” has vanished. Daisy and Tom have already fled East Egg with no forwarding address; Meyer Wolfshiem refuses to come, sending a curt letter that hides behind “important business”; Klipspringer calls about a pair of forgotten tennis shoes, not grief. Only Gatsby’s father, Henry C. Gatz, arrives from Minnesota, proud of the son who escaped his rural birth but too late to save him. On the rainy afternoon of the burial Nick, Gatz, the Lutheran minister, and the owl-eyed man from Gatsby’s library are the only mourners. Afterwards Nick walks through the deserted mansion, erases an obscene word scrawled on the marble steps, and decides the East is haunted by “careless people.” He breaks off his fragile relationship with Jordan, confronts Tom, and returns West, meditating on the green light, the Dutch sailors’ first glimpse of America, and the human compulsion to row endlessly “against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”  

Evaluation:  
Fitzgerald’s prose here is spare yet elegiac; the catalog of absences (no flowers, no wires, no crowds) is more chilling than any melodramatic death scene. By stripping away color and music he forces the reader to feel moral emptiness in real time. The cyclical imagery—seasons, the tide, the green light—compresses the whole novel into a single, haunting cadence. The tone modulates from bitter satire to something close to prayer, giving the book its lasting ache.  

Reflection:  
Chapter 9 left me thinking about how quickly a person’s story can be erased when the party ends. Social media today replicates Gatsby’s lavish gatherings: hundreds of “friends,” likes, comments—yet who would show up for our funeral? The chapter is a warning that networks built on convenience collapse the moment they require sacrifice. It also made me reassess my own “green light” goals. Gatsby’s dream was noble but solitary; he tried to resurrect the past instead of building a shared future. I’ve caught myself chasing similar mirages—an ideal job title, a perfect body—while neglecting relationships that would actually attend my burial. Finally, Nick’s decision to “come back home” reminded me that geography shapes morality: leaving the toxic pond can be the first step toward clarity.