The Great Gatsby: Chapters 8-9

“He might have despised himself, for he had certainly taken her under false pretenses. I don’t mean that he had traded on his phantom millions, but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself — that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities — he had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world.”(Ch. 8)

-Gatsby tried to create a better him, a man worth the love of Daisy. He was the opposite of what he portrayed himself to be. Later on, after being someone else for so long he never really stopped. He built his life from the lie. From then on the line between the truth and lie was too unclear to tell what was what. This created a problem when everything in his life was based around Daisy and she stays with her husband. He was a failure. It was too late for him to realize that the person he was, was not the real him and to change it to become truly happy.

““They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “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.”(Ch. 8)

-Given the unexpected end of Gatsby, Nick was glad that his complement was the last thing that he told Gatsby. It was also the last memory of Nick that Gatsby had. Its times like this where people should take into consideration that life is short and every moment counts. People often find themselves regretting not treating someone better until it is too late. When life is short people should make the most of it and stay positive. It is never too late to make things right, tie up all lose strings, and find yourself to become truly happy.

“I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come, and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees” (Ch.8)

-Most people have goals in life they wish to achieve. Gatsby’s only had one, to be deserving of Daisy. When it became apparent that she was not going back to him, he was not sure what to think. That even the beautiful things in life can come with downsides, like thorns on roses. He lived so long with one dream, one goal, that when he was unable to achieve it, it was too late for him to come up with a new dream. He hid behind material aspects of life to where those things became him and the Jay Gatsby was lost.

“…it grew upon me that I was responsible, because no one else was interested — interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end” (Ch.9)

-Jay Gatsby spent his life trying to please one person. With his entire mind set on becoming a person worth the love of Daisy, he never really had time to make good friends. Even at death, no one cared enough to pay their respects. Not even Daisy, whose love was all he wanted. The people in his life cared more about his possessions than the man behind the expensive things. This makes a sad ending for Gatsby, a man that no one loved. People become shaded with material belongings they often never learn what life has to offer, that there is more to it than just money.

“After Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.” (Ch.9)

-It took a dramatic event for Nick to realize that he was not where he belonged. He learned a lot from the hypocritical people, but from the beginning he too was hypocritical. The death of Gatsby showed him just how much finding who you are is important. Many people need a push or a slap in the face to take the chance for new beginnings. Fulfilling one’s need leads to happiness, which many people find difficult to accomplish. You just have to take it one step at a time.