Jordan talked to Gatsby for about an hour.  She says,  It was—simply amazing,” she repeated…But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.”  She tells Nick to please come see her and she leaves.  Nick is one of the last to leave the party and he goes to apologize for not finding the host right when he gets to the party.  Gatsby doesn’t seem to care at all.  And just starts talking about a hydroplane which seems to be something in between a plane and a boat.  That’s when they see the massive car accident and the two men in the accident are so drunk they don’t even seem to realize they have been in an accident!  The guy actually said when he got out of the wrecked car “Did we run outa gas?”  It was really funny.  It did show how unconcerned these rich people were about things – they didn’t care at all that the car was destroyed or that someone could have been hurt.  They were just focused on having a good time.  It tells us the difference between the rich and the poor.
The new information that is implied about Gatsby based on who Mr. Wolfsheim is that Gatsby had someone who helped him in his bootlegging business. It just shows that they are both prominent figures in organized crime. Gatsby also doesn't show his crime side to people, mostly he just shows his rich and bougie side always. But Mr. Wolfsheim is most definitely his business associate and doesn't live the rich life he lives the underground crime life. They are both very different but also are similar in some ways.  

The image that Gatsby portrays to others is that he is a very generous person who throw's parties for random people. But in reality he is trying to make money illegally with his associate and this kind shows that he acts completely different with different people. 

​Nick goes to the first of many huge parties at Gatsby’s house.  He got a paper invitation to attend but most of the people there just show up by word of mouth so they can drink his alcohol that was illegal at the time in prohibition.  Most of them do not even know Gatsby and talk badly about him.  For example, “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” Or “…it’s more that he was a German spy during the war.”  Basically no one really knows him, they just take advantage of him.  He doesn’t drink and doesn’t have any fun at the parties.  He just walks around.  He did call Jordan Baker in to talk to her to try and find out about Daisy and to arrange a meeting with Daisy somehow.  You get the feeling it was the main reason he had a huge party.  To show off and try and arrange a meeting.  There was a big car accident after the party by a strange man who was drunk and in the library earlier and he was amazed that the books were real!  The big accident may be foreshadowing for what comes later.  Gatsby and Nick figured out that they may have seen each other in the war.  “I was in the Seventh Infantry until June nineteen-eighteen.  I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.”  He asked him to go out in his hydroplane and Nick didn’t know who he was talking to and thought it very strange.  Then Gatsby introduced himself and starts calling Nick “Old Sport”.  

Daisy and Tom go to a party at Gatsby’s house.  You can tell Daisy is thrilled with all of it but Tom isn’t so sure about Gatsby.  He thinks Gatsby must be a bootlegger because he is acting like he is “newly rich”.  The idea behind this statement is that when you have had money for all of your life or for many generations in your family you act differently about money.  They don’t throw money around and show off – they just live well and traditionally.  Gatsby instead thinks being rich is throwing huge parties where you show off and have celebrities you do not even know.  He has a lot of food and alcohol and doesn’t even interact with people.  He just let’s them enjoy everything.  Tom is very curious about Gatsby.  ”Who is this Gatsby anyhow?” demanded Tom suddenly.  “Some big bootlegger?”  Tom thinks he is suspicious and doesn’t trust him.  That is probably a good idea since Gatsby wants Tom’s wife!  Daisy takes up for Gatsby and says the people there at the big party force themselves in and Gatsby is too polite to object.  And that he was NOT a bootlegger.  She says, “He owned some drug stores, a lot of drug stores.  He built them up himself.”  However, these drug stores really could have been to sell alcohol.  During prohibition people would get a doctor’s prescription and get alcohol in a drug store so technically he is like a bootlegger.  Daisy and Nick don’t care – they like and admire Gatsby.  Tom is thinking something is wrong but he doesn’t know what and he is planning to do an investigation of Gatsby.  Gatsby comes to Nick later and is afraid Daisy didn’t like the party and that was his plan all along to impress her with a fancy party.  He thinks she no longer understands him as much as she did five years earlier when they were dating.  “I’m going to fix everything just eh way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly.  She’ll see.”

 

“Daisy, that’s all over now,” he said earnestly.  “It doesn’t matter anymore.  Just tell him the truth – that you never loved him-and it’s all wiped out forever.”  

 

“Oh, you want too much!” she cried to Gatsby.  “I love you now- isn’t that enough?  I can’t help what’s past,” she began to sob helplessly.  “I did love him once-but I loved you too.”  She had never planned on leaving Tom really.

 

Daisy and Gatsby take off in his car and the others follow in Tom’s car after the big argument.  Tom chases after them-- Daisy and Gatsby in his big yellow car.  There is a massive accident and Tom realizes his girlfriend has been killed in a hit and run.  Someone saw a big yellow car speeding away from the accident.  The husband of Tom’s girlfriend is devastated.  He was trying to get her to move away because he suspected she was having an affair.  He never knew it was with Tom.

"But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them."  "Left no address?"  "No." "Say when they'd be back?" "No." "any idea where they are?  How I could reach them?" "I don't know.  Can't say."

He even talked to the dead Gatsby:

"I'll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don't worry.  Just trust me and I'll get somebody for you-----"

Eventually Gatsby's father saw the notice of Gatsby's death in the Chicago newspaper and rushed to be with his dead son:"I saw it in the Chicago newspaper, " he said.  "It was all in the Chicago newspaper.  I started right away."  

You could tell his dad thought alot of his son:

"He had a big future before him, you know.  He was only a young man but he had a lot of brain power here."  "If he'd of lived he'd of been a great man.  A man like James J. Hill.  He'd of helped build up the country."

When Nick goes to ask Meyer Wolfshiem if he could come to the funeral Wolfshiem says this of Gatsby's early days:

"My memory goes back to when first I met him," he said.  "A young major just out of the army and covered over with medals he got in the war.  He was so hard up he had to keep on wearing the uniform because he couldn't buy some regular clothes.  first time I saw him was when he come into Winebrenner's poolroom at 43rd street and asked for a job.  He hadn't eat anything for a couple of days.  "Come on have some lunch with me,' I said.  He ate more than four dollars' worth of food in half an hour."

We can see Gatsby came from poverty and was trying to find a way to climb out of it and win Daisy back.

Then we see that his father found a book of Gatsby's that showed his strict schedule and his resolves of how to get ahead.

"Jimmy was bound to get ahead.  He always had some resolves like this or something.  Do you notice what he's got about improving his mind?  He was always great for that.  He told me I et like a hog once and I beat him for it."

No one really came to his funeral despite all his accomplishments and how far he had come.  Only Nick and his dad and a few servants.  He died alone with no one was very depressing.

This shows how long Gatsby waited for Daisy and how much he wanted to help her after she killed a woman.  Daisy was done with him and he had no idea.

"You ought to go away," I said.  "It's pretty certain they'll trace your car."  "Go away NOW, old sport?"  "Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal."  He wouldn't consider it.  He couldn't possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do.  He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free.

 Even Nick knew he should lay low and forget about Daisy but still Gatsby hung on to the hope that his long lost love would come back to him.  We all start to realize she never will.
"I'm going to drain the pool today, Mr. Gatsby...."  "Don't do it today," Gatsby answered.   He turned to me apologetically.  "You know, old sport, I've never used that pool all summer"?

 This is foreshadowing a little bit what will happen later when he is vulnerable and exposed in his swimming pool.  It is a little sad that he has had all these parties and people over and never once enjoyed his own pool.
"It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete."

 Wilson figured out who owned the car that killed his wife by asking around but he never knew that Gatsby was not the driver.  Now both are dead.  The pool started as a beautiful and fun party place and ended in death.

Text to Text 

The Great Gatsby reminds me of Lord of the Flies that we read in English Class Freshman year.  In Lord of the Flies a lot of people die because of their own mistakes and mistakes made by other people cause deaths to happen. In The Great Gatsby, he died because of somebody else’s actions.  Mainly, Tom’s affair with Myrtle created a confusion with Myrtle running into the road causing them to hit her. Tom forced Gatsby to let him drive his yellow car when Myrtle saw him drive by on the way into town.  Then Daisy drove away in the same car and was a bad driver and accidently killed Myrtle.  Both books are very brutal with several deaths that did not have to happen.  Both books have very unhappy and unfair endings. But the Lord of the Flies was all about kids, so it is different in some ways but giving kids power over others wasn't at all a good idea in the end. Two kids were killed in the book and all because they wanted to know something, and another kid didn’t like, and they abused power and ended in tragedy.  In Gatsby, all of Tom’s lies and arrogance eventually killed Myrtle, her husband and Gatsby.  In the end, the one with the most money and power, Tom, wins and all those with less power lose.  This is the same as the Lord of the Flies. 

The concepts in The Great Gatsby relate to my own life in three main ways.  First, I admire how Gatsby went to war and became a war hero.  He put his country and his beliefs before his own safety, and I would like to think I would do the same.  Going into the military and fighting in war is really being selfless. Second, Gatsby figured out how to become rich when he returned from war.  This would also be a dream for me.  But he may not have become rich in lawful ways so that is probably not something I would want to do.  Finally, Gatsby had a hard time with love and relationships.  I have also had this experience and fully understand Gatsby’s point of view as a result.  Gatsby gave his entire life to Daisy and really worshiped her and the ideal of them being together.  I have had a few girlfriends so far and whenever I have completely been in love I have been crushed.  Sometimes women are hard to understand and if you are blindly pursuing them, you can in the end be destroyed. Also, Gatsby had a dream that he would marry Daisy once he came back from war if he became rich.  He had very simple ideas that the only reason he and Daisy could not be together was because he was not rich.  It was way more complicated than that.  Being rich and in a higher-level social status is more than just money.  It is a way of life and Gatsby could never fit in.  I too sometimes feel like I don’t fit in, and I have all these big expectations of relationships.  It is a very bad thing to do because it sets you up for failure and causes you to overthink every move. After Gatsby tried to get all these things like parties and celebrities, and money and a huge house to impress Daisy and be close to her.  None of it worked and he did not get to live his dream, and this is a good lesson to learn. Sometimes you must see people for who they really are and if they don’t love you as you are they just aren’t worth the effort. 

The ideas in this reading relate to the larger world by thinking about the past, present and future.  In the past the setting was right after a world war and during prohibition.  That past context is like today because we are in a world war against Covid-19 and because we have restrictions on so many parts of our lives.  This context makes it easy to understand how both in Gatsby and now people are searching for hero’s and ways to work around restrictions.  In present day, the text relates to our current world because in the text and now social class and money equal power and status and there are so many people that will never be able to have any of that just like Gatsby.  The future world will hopefully be different than the Gatsby text because women may be able to be independent and make their own way in the world with jobs and status without a husband.  Maybe these ideas will be seen as something bad and maybe the movie or book will get banned because people are too sensitive about topics like women’s status or social status. I hope the book is never banned because there are several important lessons in the book that are very important to know.