The Great Gatsby
Scene #10 · Chapter 9
Nick arranges Gatsby's funeral, but almost no one attends the rainy ceremony. The hundreds of party guests who enjoyed Gatsby's hospitality stay away, and even Meyer Wolfsheim refuses to come. Only Gatsby's father, Henry Gatz, arrives from Minnesota, carrying a photograph of the mansion and a childhood schedule showing young Jimmy Gatz's self-improvement resolutions. The owl-eyed man from the library appears briefly, remarking "The poor son-of-a-bitch." Daisy and Tom have left town without a forwarding address, sending no flowers or message.
The empty funeral exposes the hollowness of Gatsby's social world and proves that his parties bought him spectators, not friends. Henry Gatz's pride in his son's mansion and his preservation of Jimmy's boyhood schedule reveal the innocent American Dream ambition that motivated Gatsby, now corrupted and destroyed. The Buchanans' absence confirms their complete moral bankruptcy—they have retreated into their money and left Gatsby to take all consequences, fulfilling Nick's later judgment that they are careless people who smash things up and let others clean up their mess.
"I couldn't get to the house," he remarked. "Neither could anybody else." "Go on!" He started. "Why, my God! they used to go there by the hundreds." He took off his glasses and wiped them again, outside and in. "The poor son-of-a-bitch," he said.
Chapter 9 · Narrator, Owl Eyes
He had reached an age where death no longer has the quality of ghastly surprise, and when he looked around him now for the first time and saw the height and splendor of the hall and the great rooms opening out from it into other rooms, his grief began to be mixed with an awed pride.
Chapter 9 · Narrator
I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them.
Chapter 9 · Narrator
I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: "I'll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don't worry. Just trust me and I'll get somebody for you—"
Chapter 9 · Narrator
I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment, but he was already too far away, and I could only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn't sent a message or a flower.
Chapter 9 · Narrator