The Great Gatsby: Chapter 9 Analysis

Chapter Summary In this Chapter, Nick decides that Gatsby wouldn’t want to face his funeral by himself. So Nick starts calling to let people know about his passing and asking if they will be coming to pay their respects. Nick calls Mr. Wolfshiem and he tells NIck that he has a social engagement and will not be able to make it. Nick answers a call from Mr. Klipspringer, who only wanted his pair of his tennis shoes instead of calling in favor of attending Gatsby’s funeral. Nick hangs up on him for his insolence and feels pity for Gatsby. Nick tries to get in touch with Tom and Daisy but they have left and told no one where they are going. One man that does come to Gatsby’s funeral is his father Henry C. Gatz who came all the way from Minnesota. Henry tells Nick of Gatsby’s younger years and saves a picture of his house. Nick eventually sees Tom around town and initially refuses to shake his hand, but eventually he does after a brief conversation. Fitzgerald writes that Nick thinks Tom and Daisy are careless people who think that their money will get them out of any bad situation. Nick ends up moving back to the Midwest and breaks things off with Jordan who is engaged to a man. Nick, before he moves, does return to Gatsby’s house and cleans off something that was written on his staircase then looks out onto the water and up at the stars.

Syntax ●Pg “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter--to-morrow 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.” ●Fitzgerald uses the dashes to show the fact that this sentence is unfinished. He does this to emphasize how through all of Gatsby’s efforts to get back to the way things were, that he and Americans never did reach his dream and the American Dream. In short, there wasn't a “fine morning” to come to.

Syntax “Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old-even then it had always for me a quality of distortion.” (pg.176) Fitzgerald uses an anaphora at the beginning of this sentence. When using this literary device for a sense of repetition, it shows the reader how Nick really felt about the East - as if something was off or misleading (implied by the word “distortion”). He was being more specific about how, despite all of its positive qualities, his opinion about the East being deceptive or warped remains the same.

Syntax ● Pg “After 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.” ● Fitzgerald uses repetition at the beginning of this chapter to show how monotonous the day was surrounding Gatsby’s passing had been. It really helps to drive the point home of how upsetting and memorable Gatsby’s death was. Fitzgerald goes on to use polysyndeton to emphasize all of the coming and going that occurred that day.

Diction

“…a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lusterless moon.” (Page 176) The use of words like “sullen,” “overhanging,” and “lusterless” create a dark and uneasy feeling in the situation. Fitzgerald uses this dark, negative diction throughout the entire chapter. This diction ultimately conveys a solemn, despairing theme of an empty hopelessness.

Chapter Diction In this 9th chapter, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays a lot of Nick's thoughts in the aftermath of Gatsby's death through the usage of dark words and descriptions to establish the melancholy, dreary, and defeated tone that the chapter embodies. Most words appealed to imagery and were generally negative in connotations and denotations. He often used dismal words, or words of inefficiency like, "sprawling" and "swollen". Describing "a hundred houses...crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon" (176) creates a dull and uneasy atmosphere. Fitzgerald also writes, "...four solemn men walk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman..." on the same page. Referring to the men as "solemn," whilst being with an unconscious intoxicated woman also establishes the despondency of the East. Not to mention that "no one knows the woman's name, and no one cares" - this creates a very pessimistic demeanor. In conclusion, the several bleak, morose words and phrases are used that express the chapter's pensive and melancholy tone.

Figurative Language

“Most of those reports were a nightmare - grotesque, circumstantial, eager, and untrue.” (Page 163) The figurative language in this is the metaphor used in comparing the newspaper reports to something as terrible as a bad dream; the news came across as something that brings about horror, apprehension, shock, or devastation.

“There was a long silence on the other end of the wire, followed by an exclamation...then a quick squawk as the connection was broken.” (Page 167) The literary device used in this was the onomatopoeia, which was used to convey the person on the receiving end of the line (“Slagle”, who called his wire & was unaware of Gatsby being deceased until Nick informed him the paragraph prior) and their surprise (or perhaps shocked grief) at Gatsby’s death before abruptly hanging up.

"As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing after us over the soggy ground.” (Page 174). This is an example of both alliteration and imagery, as the sentence contains a continuous beginning sound in the part of “sound of someone splashing”. Imagery is used in the descriptive words “splashing” and “soggy” - words that appeal to the sense of hearing and add to the aspect of the scene.

"I spent my Saturday nights in New York, because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint, and incessant, from his garden..." (Page 179) The usage of descriptive imagery in the paragraph gives both a visual and an auditory appeal to the senses using description of “gleaming”, dazzling parties, as well as the far off mirth of party-goers at Gatsby’s. Nick recalls the vivid memory with fondness.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (Page 180) This metaphor Nick states is addressing Gatsby’s dilemma of trying to obtain Daisy’s love that has already evaded his grasp in the past (as she “chose” Tom), yet how he persists in trying to have her and those previous times back. Specifically, it means that his attempts weren't feasible due to the fact that the past cannot be returned to, but Gatsby tried to go “against the current” to get back something that was no longer attainable to him.