The Great Gatsby: Ch. 9, pages 163-180

Two years later, Nick recalls the events that happened during and after Gatsby's funeral. Nick attempts to hold a large funeral for Gatsby, but nobody shows up besides a few former servants, Gatsby's father named Henry Gatz, Owl Eyes, and Nick. Nick tries to get Wolfshiem to come but he claims he is busy and cannot come. Before Nick left for the Midwest, he sees Tom and concludes that Tom and Daisy are too careless and only bring misfortune to people who know them, which completely contradicts his statement in the beginning of the novel that said he doesn't judge people. At the end of the novel, Nick compares the green light on the other side of the dock to the American dream.

Character: Nick

" They were careless people, Tom and Daisyーthey smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their cast carelessness, or whatever it was that kepy them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

Nick is trustworthy yet not-trustworthy. In the beginning of the novel, he never was on any side and also never judged people. Because he was also the narrator and everything he finds out the readers find out, he becomes trustworthy. As the novel progressed, he began to view everybody besides Gatsby in more contempt and all his previous claims about reserving judgement were contradicted. As seen in the quote above, he judges Tom and Daisy.

Nick's active role in the novel in not only to narrate, but also to connect Daisy and Gatsby. If Nick wasn't in the story, Gatsby and Daisy would have never met. Throughout the novel, Nick is the one connecting Gatsby and Daisy together. At one point, Nick says, "I tried to go then, but they wouldn't hear of it; perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactory alone." (Fitzgerald 94) The start of their relationship was all thanks to Nick.

Quote:
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. it eluded us then, but that's no matterーto-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morningー   So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

The quote is not only important to the chapter, but to the whole novel. Gatsby represents everybody pursuing the American dream in Fitzgerald's time. The green light is the American dream, which Gatsby never reaches. I think Fitzgerald is trying to say that the American dream is somewhat out of reach because people in his time look back at the past too much, which is exemplified as Gatsby tries to make the present with Daisy just like the past. Fitzgerald first published the novel a few years after the Great War. Disillusioned, people wanted to return to the past but at the same time also going forward.