The last chapter of The Great Gatsby continues a theme begun in the previous chapter, bringing the reader face-to-face with the ugly side of the American dream. Throughout the story, Gatsby has been held up as an example of one who has achieved the American dream—he had money, possessions, independence, and people who wanted to be around him. Or so the reader thinks. Gatsby’s funeral takes center stage in this chapter, and with the exception of Nick, who continues to show his moral fiber, what Fitzgerald reveals about the moral decrepitude of those people still living is even worse than any of Gatsby’s secrets.
As the chapter opens, Nick tells readers what an impact this course of events makes upon him. “After two years,” he writes, “I remember the rest of that day, and that night, and the next day” as a ceaseless string of police officers and newspaper reporters. They came to investigate, and once again, the carnivalesque atmosphere that so often accompanied Gatsby’s parties establishes itself. This time, however, the situation is decidedly less merry. Nick, showing he has come to respect Gatsby over the course of the summer, worries that, in fact, the circus-like atmosphere will allow the “grotesque, circumstantial, [and] eager” reporters to mythologize his neighbor, filling the pages of their rags with half-truths and full-blown lies. For Nick, however, even more disturbing than the free-for-all that surrounds the investigation is the fact that he finds himself “on Gatsby’s side, and alone.”
Nick, by default, assumes the responsibility for making Gatsby’s final arrangements, “because no one else was interested—interested . . . with that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end.” Two important things are revealed in that short statement. First, the Nick who is blooming at the end of Chapter 7 has come into fruition in this chapter. He is a man of principles and integrity (which shows more and more as the chapter unfolds). The second idea introduced here is the utter shallowness of the people who, in better times, take every opportunity to be at Gatsby’s house, drinking his liquor, eating his food, and enjoying his hospitality, but abandon him at the end: Daisy and Tom have left without a forwarding address. Meyer Wolfshiem, who is “completely knocked down and out” at Gatsby’s death, and who wants to “know about the funeral etc.” is speaking rhetorically, as his refusal to get involved shows. Even the partygoers disappear. The party is over, and so they move on to the next event, treating their host with the same respect in death that they gave him in life—none at all. Klipspringer is a shining example of all the partygoers when he phones Gatsby’s, speaks to Nick, and sidesteps the issue of Gatsby’s funeral, shamelessly admitting, “what I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there . . . I’m sort of helpless without them.” Nick, again much to his credit, hangs up the phone as Klipspringer tries to leave a forwarding address. The callousness of the people who so eagerly took advantage of Gatsby’s hospitality is appalling. Certainly the American dream isn’t supposed to end like this, gunned down for something you didn’t do, utterly forgotten in your death. Fitzgerald does a fine job of displaying the downside to the American dream and how drive and ambition can, in effect, go too far. Dreams are useful, to a point, but when they consume the dreamer, they lead to destruction.
In true Fitzgerald fashion, and in keeping with the way he has effectively withheld information regarding Gatsby’s past throughout the novel, just when the reader thinks he or she knows all, Gatsby’s father arrives and gives yet another peek into Gatsby’s past. Henry C. Gatz, an unassuming man who is not nearly as wretched as one may have imagined, arrives for his son’s burial. The relationship between father and son is estranged, even in death, as evidenced by Gatz’s burying “Jimmy” in the East where “he always liked it better.” In many ways, Gatz seems a perfectly normal man, yet there is a hint of the superficiality that’s similar to Gatsby’s former party guests. In one noted example, Nick finds Gatz “walking up and down excitedly in the hall. His pride in his son and in his son’s possessions was continually increasing.” Apparently Gatz, like so many others, measured Gatsby’s merit not on the type of man he was, but on his possessions.
Gatz also fills in Gatsby’s early days by pointing to a schedule written in 1906, when Gatsby was about fourteen years old. First, it happens to be in Hopalong Cassidy, a famous Western adventure serial from the turn of the century. The book is significant in that it helps explain where Gatsby’s dreamer spirit came from. The schedule, too, speaks to a dreamer’s spirit. The itinerary is commendable: Gatsby, from the early days, aspired to greatness.
After Gatsby’s funeral, wherein Nick and Gatz are the chief (and nearly sole) mourners, little is left for Nick in the East. In fact, he comes to the realization that in the end, Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan, and he all come from the West and in the end they all “possessed some deficiency in common which made [them] subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.” It is only a matter of time before he leaves the East, headed back to the Midwest where, presumably, morality and kindness still exist.
Before he leaves, however, Nick has two important experiences. First, he speaks with Jordan on the phone. What he learns is surprising, but strangely in keeping with her character: She chastises him for being the first man who has ever broken up with her, but before ending the conversation she gets in one last strike, hitting his secret vanity and labeling him as deceitful and dishonest. The second important experience occurs when Nick bumps into Tom on the street. Although he tries to avoid Tom, meeting him can’t be helped. Tom, as arrogant as ever, initiates conversation, slightly offended that Nick won’t shake hands upon their meeting. During the short conversation, Nick learns that Tom, not surpriingly, had a role in Gatsby’s death. When Wilson came to Tom’s house, gun in hand, Tom directed Wilson to Gatsby, not feeling an ounce of remorse. In his mind’s eye, what he had done was “entirely justified,” leading Nick to the apt conclusion that Tom and Daisy were “careless people,” using people like objects, until they no longer serve a purpose, then they discard them and move on. This realization is more than Nick can stand and forces him to a new level of maturity. In the end, he shakes hands with Tom, finding no reason not to because Tom (and the people he represents) is really no more than a child.
The final chapter of the novel again draws attention to the green light at the end of the dock, and in turn, to the hopes and dreams of society. Readers are left with a final image of Gatsby as a powerful presence who lives on despite the destruction of the dream and the decay of the estate. Nick again reminds the reader of the thin line separating dreams from reality, causing everyone to stop and wonder about the validity of the dreams people chase. Is everyone, like Gatsby, chasing illusions while neglecting reality? Can anyone ever escape being held hostage by the past, continually working to get back to better times and sometimes missing the joy of the present? According to Nick, the more Gatsby reached for his dream, the more it retreated into the shadowy past, taking him further and further away from what is real. Gatsby had hope and believed in the bounty of what was ahead, but it brought him face-to-face with his own destruction. Although one may look at Gatsby and realize the futility of chasing dreams (at the expense of the here and now), in the end, is anyone really that different? Perhaps there’s a bit of Gatsby in everyone. After all, society is, as Nick says, “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
