The Great Gatsby: Chapter IX (pages 174-180) [Overview]

F. Scott Fitzgerald finishes The Great Gatsby by explaining what happened with Nick's relationship with Miss Baker, and by finding out the truth from Tom. I personally found the ending of this book to be quite sad. Nick never married Jordan, Gatsby was murdered, and Nick's only friends, Daisy and Tom, left him. Despite the sad ending, I found this book to have a good story behind it. Although I am sure there where a large amount of lessons and messages to take from this novel, I personally observed very few. I still question whether one of the lessons is that people with wealth, "[Smash] up things and creatures and then [retreat] back into their money or their vast carelessness" (Fitzgerald, 179). I do not believe that Fitzgerald is attempting to say that rich people mess things up and then coward away from the consequences, but that may be what he is trying to get across to the reader. Furthermore, I believe Gatsby's character was a good role model in saying one should fight for their dreams. I also believe one of the biggest lessons to take away from this book, although I already said this in another blog, is that alcohol has more negative affects than positive. I enjoyed reading this book and felt as though it was very well written and realistic.