Week 7- December 10, 2007

The last chapter is written two years after Gatsby's death, or I guess one would say murder. The press fill the area surrounding Gatsby's mansion, and outrageous rumors begin to go around about how Gatsby was murdered and his "relations" with Myrtle and Wilson. Nick attempts to give Gatsby a large funeral, but all of his friends fail to show up. I think that this shows that Gatsby didn't really have any friends. The people he knew only liked him so they could go to his parties. Tom and Daisy also move away. The only people who do show up at his funeral are Owl Eyes, some of his servants, and Gatsby's dad from Minnesota.
Nick later breaks up with Jordan and moves back to the Midwest. This disappointed me because I thought that Jordan and Nick were good together. I thought that she meant more to him than just to leave her. Why didn't he bring her with or at least offer to? Before he heads back, he meets up with Tom in New York City. Tom tells Nick that he was the one who told Wilson everything and that Gatsby deserved to die. Nick decides to himself that Tom and Daisy, both, are uncaring people who destroy other's and their things, using their own money to get out of anything they need. Nick begins to remember life in the West, and thinks that compared to the East, it is full of Christmas spirit, whereas the East is very distorted.
On the night before he moves back to Minnesota, Nick lays on the beach and looks at the sky and the moon rising. He compares the dreamers and explorers trying to find America to Gatsby searching for Daisy. He imagines America's green plains and the green light from Daisy's dock. Gatsby was living the "American dream" with all of his wealth and success, but he didn't realize that his dream was over and that his goals were nothing without Daisy. Nick thinks that people are moved by their own dreams, and pictures it as boats moving across the water; struggling.

Week 6- December 5, 2007

I found this a very exciting chapter. In the beginning, Nick goes and visits Gatsby to see if there is anymore news about the day before and tells Gatsby that he should just leave Long Island so he doesn't get into trouble. Gatsby refuses to leave Daisy behind. He reveals to Nick that Daisy was the first girl that Gatsby felt really close too, and that he lied to her about where he grew up and went to school just so she would like him; and so he would feel like he measured up to her standards. He goes on to tell Nick that Daisy had promised to wait until he came back from the war, but she ended up marrying Tom. Then the gardener barges in and tells Gatsby that he had planned to empty the pool and wanted to know if he was going to. He tells his gardener not to drain it fore he hasn't even gone in it yet. Since I have already read this chapter, I know that this is forshadowing something big to come. Nick leaves because he doesn't want to be too late for work and says to Gatsby that he is worth more than any of his friends including Tom and Daisy.
Nick falls asleep while he is at work, and is awakened to the ringing of the telephone. It is Jordan, and her and Nick get into a fight because he is too distracted to even go on a date with her. I would be mad if my boyfriend did that too. Think about it, wouldn't you want your boyfriend/girlfriend to talk to you about whatever is on their mind. Jordan just wants to be filled in on the personal information in Nick's life, but Nick does not seem to be a very open guy. He keeps to himself a lot, at least with his thoughts anyways.
The book then tells us of what happened after Myrtle was killed. George Wilson stayed up talking to Michaelis, the restaurant manager. He told Myrtle that he knew about her affair and that she could not keep this sin from the eyes of God. Then the next morning when Mr. Wilson wakes up, he sees the sun shining down on Doctor T. J. Eckleburg's eyes, and he believes that they are the eyes of God. He then decides to himself that whoever killed Myrtle must have obviously been the person she was having an affair with and sets out for revenge, little does he know that he is completely wrong about who her lover is. He first looks for Tom, but knows that it could not have been Tom because Tom arrived in a different car after the accident. Wilson eventually THINKS that he figured everything out. He goes to Gatsby's mansion to get his revenge for Myrtle's death. At the mansion he see Gatsby laying on an air matress floating in the pool. Wilson shoots Gatsby and then shoots himself.
Nick quickly get back to Gatsby's, only to find Gatsby floating in his pool dead with a, I guess you would say, puddle of blood around him. Nick tries to imagine Gatsby's last thoughts, meaningless without Daisy in his life. Then he finds Wilson on the ground not to far from the pool. What I don't understand is why did Wilson kill himself? No one would have found out that he was the one who killed Gatsby, or was it because he felt guilty?