Nick to Gatsby: "They're a rotten crowd...you're worth the whole damn bunch put together." "I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end." 1
Michaelis George finds leash; thinks whomever she was having an affair with killed her, "It was the man in that car. She ran out to speak to him and he wouldn't stop." (166) George points out Eyes of Dr. TJ to Myrtle when he discovers affair "God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me but you can't fool God!" Wilson looks at the eyes of Dr. TJ "which had just emerged pale and enormous from the dissolving night." says he has a way of finding out who was driving that car finds out and goes to Gatsby's house 2
Gatsby finally uses his pool... 2. "It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass and the holocaust was complete" 3
Recklessness of the Roaring 20s: Destroys every relationship: 1. 2. 3. 4. Only "old money" prevails Daisy returns to Tom 4
Who's the most/least immoral of the group? Why? Consider each character's indiscretions/ wrongdoings/intentions. Immoral Moral Tom Daisy Jordan George Nick Wilson Myrtle Gatsby 5
Wilson to Gatsby's house: chauffeur hears gunshots "It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass and the holocaust was complete" 6
Rumors: Post Gatsby's Death: Daisy: Wolfsheim Klipspringer Abandonment of G = Emptiness of the Age (Wolfsheim & Buchanans represent corruption) Chicago Phone Call: 7
Only Attendees at Funeral: => => Father's Pride: American Dream: 8
Only Attendees at Funeral: => => American Dream: Father's Pride: 9
Tom Sighting: Tom tells Nick that he told Wilson that G was having affair with Myrtle and ran her down Nick just says that it's not true (Tom doesn't know Daisy was driving) Daisy ran over Myrtle & Tom was having affair yet Gatsby pays the price for their recklessness "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money...and let other people clean up the mess they had made 10
2. Closure with Jordan: 185 There was one thing to be done before I left, an awkward unpleasant thing that perhaps had better have been let alone. But I wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away. I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together and what had happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still listing in a big chair.when I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. [Jordan:].You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride. I m thirty, I said. I m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor. 11
Tom Sighting: Tom tells Nick: Nick's Response: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money...and let other people clean up the mess they had made" 12
THE END And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic 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. 13