The Great Gatsby: Chapters 7-9
Episode 49
Professor Pipes has returned to school you on the final three chapters of F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary classic, The Great Gatsby. Prepare yourself to learn the fate of Jay Gatsby — it's some rough stuff in chapters 7-9.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, Murder
Transcript
Introduction:
Hello and welcome to Piper’s Paraphrases. I’m Professor Pipes and though we’ve had a great run, it’s time that we finished F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic Jazz Age novel: The Great Gatsby. Today I’ll be talking about chapters 7-9, and, well, you’re in for some rough stuff. Just get yourself ready.
Previously:
Previously in The Great Gatsby, we met the very average narrator, Nick Carraway and his great (at least in amount of money and quality of parties) neighbor, Jay Gatsby, who has been desperately in love with Nick’s cousin Daisy for years. Unfortunately, she’s married, although you might have to remind her husband of that fact, since Tom has been having an affair with Myrtle, who is also married. Apparently the only semi-monogamous relationship is between Nick and Daisy’s golfer friend Jordan. Eventually Nick helped Gatsby get re-introduced to Daisy, who seemed very interested in him… and all his money. We also learned a bit about Gatsby’s past, including the fact that he was really named James Gatz, he came from a pretty poor family, and it seems like he made his money illegally with the help of crime bosses like Meyer Wolfshiem. By the end of the first six chapters, Daisy and Tom went to one of Gatsby’s famous parties, but weren’t really impressed.
Plot Summary:
In Chapter 7, Gatsby starts acting a little strange. Ok, he’s always been a bit strange, but this is new. He stops throwing parties, and then he fires all of his servants and hires some shady people Wolfshiem knows, hoping they won’t gossip about Daisy coming over all the time. Speaking of Daisy - she invites both Nick and Gatsby to lunch at her house and the two of them are coming in hot - literally! In fact, it’s so hot the next day at lunch that everyone is lazy and grouchy, which is perhaps the most relatable thing in the whole book. Daisy kisses Gatsby and tells him she loves him, while Tom’s on the phone with George - no, not that George, Cooper, the mechanic who wants to buy Tom’s car and who’s married to Tom’s mistress. Daisy also has the nanny bring her daughter Pammy in to show her off to Gatsby and point out that - no worries - she doesn’t look like Tom at all, but Gatsby seems surprised at her existence. Eventually Tom returns and notices when Daisy gives Gatsby the look. Not the teacher look because you’re not doing what you’re supposed to. The love look. Tom starts getting angry, but agrees that the group should all go into the city. Tom’s even angrier when he volunteers to drive the group to town in Gatsby’s car and his plan backfires as Daisy says she’ll go with Gatsby in Tom’s coupe. Tom, Nick, and Jordan stop by George’s shop for gas on their way into town, and Nick notices Myrtle giving a very different look to Jordan, whom she assumes is Tom’s wife. And if you didn’t think Tom could get any angrier, you’d be wrong, since George hints that he thinks his wife is having an affair and he has decided that they’re going to move away. Eventually the group makes it to the Plaza to have drinks and uncomfortable conversation as Tom not-so-subtly calls into question Gatsby’s past, but only serves to instead make himself look like an idiot since Gatsby did, in fact, temporarily attend Oxford. Eventually Tom blows up - nope, don’t even think about it, Cooper. He metaphorically blows up and directly accuses Gatsby of having an affair with Daisy while also spewing both racism and classism. What a guy. Gatsby replies that Daisy doesn’t love Tom and has always loved Gatsby. And to make matters more awkward, Gatsby tries to get Daisy to say she never loved Tom, and Tom tries to get her to say that she did, and does, love him. Daisy kind of splits the difference, admitting that she does love Gatsby, but did love Tom, and… also Gatsby. *ShrugTom and Gatsby keep arguing about whether Daisy is leaving Tom and how Gatsby made his money. Eventually Daisy can’t take it anymore, and Tom tells her to head home with Gatsby in Gatsby’s car, and Tom, Nick, and Jordan leave in Tom’s car. Car swap!
Suddenly we have a time - and character - shift, too. Meet Michaelis, neighbor of George Wilson, who around 5:00 is told by George that he is keeping his wife shut up in the house until they move in a couple of days. Then around 7:00 he hears the couple arguing and shortly afterward Myrtle runs out into the street toward a car and is killed by a hit and run.
Now back to Nick as he arrives at the scene of the accident with Tom and Jordan. Tom is shocked to learn what happened - even more so when he learns it was a big yellow car, much like the one he was driving this afternoon. George starts to get suspicious, mmmhmm, but Tom assures him that the yellow car wasn’t his, and pulls him into the office to calm him down. Eventually they make it back to Daisy and Tom’s place. While Nick waits for a cab home, Gatsby emerges from the bushes like a fancy spy, and as he tries to explain what happened with the accident, Nick realizes it was Daisy driving. Daisy who hit Myrtle and just kept driving, but Gatsby says he’ll take the fall. Nick leaves, but Gatsby stays behind to watch over, well, the house, I guess.
Phew. That chapter was a lot. I think we need a Cooper break.
Awww so cute.
Back to it. Shockingly, Nick can’t sleep well after all the anger, affairing, and manslaughter, so he heads over to Gatsby’s when he hears him get home in the early morning hours and Nick tries to warn him to leave town, but Gatsby can’t. Because of Daisy. Let’s see: stopped waiting for you, married another man and had a kid with him, largely interested in your money, killed a woman, willing to let you go to prison for it, and went home to said husband last night instead of you. Hmm yeah, yeah. I see what he sees in her. Gatsby tells Nick about his whole, true, history and his relationship with Daisy, whom he fell in love with partly because she seemed like she was from a different world. Unfortunately, though he did well in the war, he couldn’t get back fast enough for Daisy, who felt uneasy and wanted her life settled faster, so she married Tom, and Gatsby has almost convinced himself that she never loved Tom. Eventually Nick leaves for work, but not before telling Gatsby that he’s so much better than the Buchanans of the world. You got that right. At work, Nick talks with Jordan on the phone and it’s pretty clear that the romance died last night, too. He then calls Gatsby, but can’t reach him.
And now - let’s do the time warp again! We’re back to last night, this time finding out what was going on with George Wilson. His neighbor MeeKAYLis stays with him all night, during which time George is understandably upset and alludes to his wife’s affair with who he assumes is the driver of the car, since she was running out to it. He also says he has ways of finding out who the driver was. In the morning, MeeKAYLis goes to get some sleep for a couple of hours, and returns to find that George is gone! Dun dun dun! George has made it to West Egg, where he asks someone where Gatsby lives, having apparently figured out who owns the big yellow car.
Now to Gatsby. Around 2:00 he heads to the pool. At one point the chauffeur hears shots, but being part of Wolfshiem’s crew, he doesn’t think much of it. When Nick arrives at Gatsby’s house, they find Gatsby dead in the pool and George nearby and also dead.
Okay. One more chapter to go! We can do this.
The start of Chapter 9 is all cops and journalists and looky loos all of whom eventually settle on the story that George Wilson was simply a madman who went insane with grief. Nick tries to make arrangements for the funeral, but has no luck at finding people to attend. He calls Daisy, but she and Tom have packed their bags and left. People who attended all Gatsby’s parties make miserable excuses or straight up say he deserved what he got. Wolfshiem says he can’t get mixed up in it. So it’s just Nick and Gatsby against the world. Gatsby’s dad, Mr. Gatz, arrives and the two of them, along with some servants, have the funeral alone. Owl Eyes shows up for the graveside and says what we’re all thinking - those jerks showed up in droves to attend his parties but couldn’t be bothered to come now. Sometimes people are the worst. Speaking of the worst people ever, one day Nick runs into Tom, who unrepentantly admits that George had come to his house first, and that he told George exactly where to find the man who owned the car that hit Myrtle. By now, Nick has broken up with Jordan, the final loose string before he moves back West, having had enough of the East.
On his last night in town, Nick looks at Gatsby’s home and reflects upon Gatsby’s undying hope. His belief that his dreams lay yet before him, rather than in his past, and our human tendency to reach for a future that daily grows farther and farther away.
Characterization:
Normally now is the time when I tell you what new characterization has gone on for each of our main players. However, they’ve stayed pretty consistent lately, haven’t they?
Gatsby remains representative of hope, even waiting outside Daisy’s house until four in the morning “watching over nothing” with the hope that maybe Daisy will change her mind. Maybe she’ll choose him. He’s everything that is good and optimistic about the American Dream.
Daisy, meanwhile, remains the paragon of wealth and class. Even Gatsby admits that “Her voice is full of money.” After murdering a woman, Daisy chooses to stick with her abusive - but old money - husband and use their wealth and status to avoid her problems, rather than be with a man who loves her and would sacrifice himself for her. She is selfish to her core. Doesn’t even send a message or a flower when Gatsby dies. Tom and Daisy “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness… and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Which brings us to Nick, who actually has changed a little bit. Typically he’s the observer, on the outside looking in, just as he was throughout the battle between Tom and Gatsby. However, after Gatsby dies, he takes an active role, albeit reluctantly, since he has to clean up the mess that was made. And this messy life, with the ghost of Gatsby’s hope, drives Nick back home.
Analysis:
Let’s start our thematic analysis with Materialism. To quote the wisdom of ABBA, “Money money money, must be funny, in a rich man’s world!” And the social elite in The Great Gatsby certainly behave… funny. Wealth seems to be the goal for just about everyone in the story, epitomized by the opulent - and well-attended - parties that Gatsby throws. Everyone who has money attends, and people who want more money get to participate in an excess that they might otherwise never experience. However, with this money comes moral decay. Fitzgerald describes the parties as not only extravagant, but also vulgar. People get so drunk that they’re dunked into swimming pools or drive and crash their cars into ditches. These people have so little integrity that they refuse to attend Gatsby’s final party - his funeral - despite the fact that “they used to go there by the hundreds.” Materialism and money, it seems, have replaced morals. In fact, when George Wilson proclaims that “You may fool me, but you can’t fool God,” he’s looking not to the heavens, but into the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, “an advertisement” a physical embodiment of materialism.
Money and Class are closely tied to Relationships in this story. And I do say relationships, because there isn’t a whole lot of real love. Myrtle views her husband as unworthy of her and chooses to be with Tom, despite his abuse, because he offers money and a chance to experience a life closer to that of the upper class. However, like Myrtle with her husband, Tom doesn’t see Myrtle as an equal and gets mad when Myrtle talks about Daisy, so their relationship is destined to fail. For them, “love” is transactional. Similarly, Daisy’s relationship with Tom is “unquestionable practicality.” She chooses him because it is a practical decision that will afford her the life she is used to. She is drawn to Gatsby, but her materialism gets in the way of the purity of love they seemed to share in years past. Ultimately she chooses status, class, and Tom. Even Nick admits that in his relationship with Jordan, “I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” Nick’s whole character is that of an observer. His relationship is observational; he’s curious, so he continues with Jordan despite knowing it can go nowhere. Even the characters who do seem to experience genuine love - Gatsby and George - are doomed to die because they have unfortunately bestowed it on people who do not really see them as equals.
Finally, The Great Gatsby is all about the American Dream, but it certainly doesn’t paint the most promising picture. Yes, Gatsby falls victim to the pursuit of happiness - I mean wealth - and it causes him to sacrifice values by earning his money illegally. However, his overall dream is more noble - it’s love. He earned his money because he was desperate to elevate himself enough to be with Daisy. But even wealth wasn’t enough. In fact, nothing could be, because his dream of the perfect life with Daisy is “already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city.” Gatsby’s is a pointless endeavor. So why try? Well, interestingly, it is Gatsby’s hope, his belief “in the green light” that makes him so compelling and so worthy of Nick’s respect, despite the fact that he embodied everything Nick despised. In fact, after the drama at The Plaza, Nick points out that Gatsby is “worth the whole damn bunch put together.” However, once his dream is dead, there’s nothing left for Gatsby but to die as well. So maybe the pursuit of a noble dream is what makes life worthwhile. That’s why we “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Food for Thought:
For Gatsby’s wake, I thought I’d serve you some Food for Thought. Consider these questions as you reflect on the final chapters, and the novel as a whole.
First, what role does the weather play throughout the story? How does it contribute to the atmosphere of the story and/or what might it represent?
Second, now that the story is over, what was the impact of having Nick as a narrator? In what ways did he shape your understanding of the characters? To what extent did he “reserve all judgements” like he said way back at the start of the book?
Third, Nick becomes disgusted with the East and decides he needs to move back West. He also says that the book is really a story of Westerners. What might he mean by this, and what is the difference between the East and the West, according to Fitzgerald?
Fourth, in chapter 1, Nick states that “Gatsby turned out all right at the end.” Knowing how the book ends, what might Nick - and Fitzgerald - have meant by this?
Finally, why title the book The Great Gatsby? Is Gatsby worthy of such greatness? Why or why not?
Thanks for watching this episode of Piper’s Paraphrases. Now go forth, read a bunch, and be great people.
