The Great Gatsby

fter two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and photographers and newspaper men in and out of Gatsby's front door. A rope stretched across the main gate and a policeman by it kept out the curious, but little boys soon discovered that they could enter through my yard, and there were always a few of them clustered open-mouthed about the pool. Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression 'madman' as he bent over Wilson's body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports next morning. Most of those reports were a nightmare—grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue. When Michaelis's testimony at the inquest brought to light Wilson's suspicions of his wife I thought the whole tale would shortly be served up in racy pasquinade—but Catherine, who might have said anything, didn't say a word. She showed a surprising amount of character about it too—looked at the coroner with determined eyes under that corrected brow of hers, and swore that her sister had never seen Gatsby, that her sister was completely happy with her husband, that her sister had been into no mischief whatever. She convinced herself of it, and cried into her handkerchief, as if the very suggestion was more than she could bear. So Wilson was reduced to a 'man deranged by grief' in order that the case might remain in its simplest form. And it rested there.

Nick arranges Gatsby's funeral, but almost no one comes. The people who attended his parties, who enjoyed his hospitality, who used his wealth, are gone. Only Nick, Gatsby's father, and a few others attend. The chapter reveals the emptiness of Gatsby's life—he had everything, but in the end, he had nothing. No one cared, no one remembered, no one came. The truth is buried—the newspapers report that Wilson was 'deranged by grief,' and the real story is never told. Nick reflects on Gatsby's life and death, on the corruption that destroyed him, on the dream that trapped him. He realizes that Gatsby was great not despite his flaws, but because of his ability to dream, to hope, to believe. But that same ability destroyed him. The chapter ends with Nick leaving the East, returning to the Midwest, having learned the lessons of the summer. He's seen the corruption, the illusion, the emptiness, and he's learned to see beyond surface appearances. The novel ends with Nick's reflection on the past, on the green light, on the dream that can never be caught.