The Great Gatsby

Chapter 9 question

Nick is almost haunted by Gatsby after his death. Why does he feel this way?

Asked by
Last updated by jill d #170087
Answers 1
Add Yours

Nick's feelings of being haunted have more to do with living in the East and having allowed the lifestyle lived there to corrupt his values.

"Though Nick worships Gatsby's courage and capacity for self-reinvention, he cannot approve of either his dishonesty or his criminal dealings. Gatsby, both while he is alive and after his death, poses an insoluble challenge to Nick's customary ways of thinking about the world. Nick firmly believes that the past determines who we are: he suggests that he, and all the novel's characters, are fundamentally Westerners, and thus intrinsically unsuited to life in the East. The West, though it was once emblematic of the American desire for progress, is presented in the novel's final pages as the seat of traditional morality, an idyllic heartland, in stark contrast to the greed and depravity of the East."

Source(s)

http://www.gradesaver.com/the-great-gatsby/study-guide/section9/