INTRODUCTION

Through direct descriptions of characters, chapter 9 of The Great Gatsby offers a look into the ‘true’ nature of the book's wide cast of individuals. By exploring the ways in which they all react to Jay Gatsby’s funeral, we, as readers, can understand more about the people that we spent the whole book getting to know. Written from the future (two years after the funeral), Nick Carraway’s perspective offers a view into the events of the past with an analysis of all involved characters. In terms of rulebreaking, this chapter introduces many aspects, from style to the actions of characters. Nick, after being fed up with New York, moves to the Minnesota for a more peaceful life. This acts as a form of rulebreaking, as many people in America at the time wanted to move to New York for its perceived extravagant lifestyle and big city feel, but Nick chooses to move away from this. Other acts of rulebreaking arise in the style of the writing itself- where other texts usually would portray the events in the climax of the story as they play out, F. Scott Fitzgerald elected to write about the events two years after they occurred. This allowed him to retell the funeral in a much more fleshed-out manner, as Nick (whose perspective the story is told from) had time to fully understand the events that occur and how other characters react, which would have been difficult to portray at the moment. Chapter 9 of The Great Gatsby is a thought-provoking, rulebreaking, and unexpected conclusion to the book. Its themes and ideas provide insight into interpretations of the American dream, and if I were to declare any chapter as the ‘best’ from the book, this would be it.