Nick Carraway arranges Gatsby's funeral

Nick Carraway arranges Gatsby's funeral, an event that becomes a stark testament to the profound loneliness of Gatsby's life and the moral emptiness of the wealthy society that surrounded him. After discovering Gatsby's body in the pool, Nick takes on the sole responsibility for the funeral arrangements, a task made all the more poignant by the complete absence of anyone else who cared.

The Sole Organizer

From the moment he telephoned news of the catastrophe to West Egg village, every surmise about Gatsby and every practical question was referred to Nick. He found himself on Gatsby's side, and alone. He called up Daisy half an hour after they found the body, instinctively and without hesitation, but she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, taking baggage with them and leaving no address. Nick wanted to get somebody for Gatsby, to reassure him even in death. He tried to reach Meyer Wolfsheim, but his name wasn't in the phone book; the butler gave Nick his office address on Broadway, but by the time he had the number it was long after five, and no one answered. Nick sent the butler to New York with a letter to Wolfsheim, asking for information and urging him to come out on the next train. He was sure Wolfsheim would start when he saw the newspapers, just as he was sure there'd be a wire from Daisy before noon—but neither a wire nor Mr. Wolfsheim arrived.

The Responses of the Living

Wolfsheim's written answer arrived, and it was a refusal. He wrote that it had been one of the most terrible shocks of his life, but that he could not come down as he was tied up in very important business and could not get mixed up in the thing. He added a hasty postscript: "Let me know about the funeral etc. do not know his family at all." When the phone rang and Long Distance said Chicago was calling, Nick thought it would be Daisy at last, but it was a man named Slagle, asking about a bond transaction, unaware that Gatsby was dead. Nick also called up a few people himself, but they were hard to find. One gentleman to whom he telephoned implied that Gatsby had got what he deserved. That night, an obviously frightened person called—it was Ewing Klipspringer, the "boarder" who had lived at Gatsby's house all summer. Nick told him the funeral was the next day at three o'clock and asked him to come. Klipspringer hesitated, explaining that he was staying with some people in Greenwich and they rather expected him to be with them for a picnic. He then asked if it would be too much trouble to have the butler send on a pair of tennis shoes he had left behind. Nick hung up the receiver.

The Funeral Itself

The morning of the funeral, Nick went up to New York to see Meyer Wolfsheim in person, pushing open a door marked "The Swastika Holding Company." After a confrontation with a hostile secretary, Wolfsheim appeared. He reminisced about first meeting Gatsby, a young major just out of the army, covered with medals, so hard up he had to keep wearing his uniform. Wolfsheim claimed he had raised Gatsby up out of nothing, right out of the gutter. But when Nick asked him to come to the funeral, Wolfsheim refused, saying he never liked to get mixed up in it when a man got killed. "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead," he said. Nick returned to West Egg in a drizzle. He found Gatsby's father, Henry C. Gatz, who had arrived from Minnesota after seeing the news in a Chicago newspaper. Mr. Gatz showed Nick a photograph of the house and a ragged old copy of a book called Hopalong Cassidy that had belonged to his son as a boy, with a handwritten schedule and resolves on the last fly-leaf. A little before three, the Lutheran minister arrived from Flushing. Nick and Mr. Gatz looked out the windows for other cars. Nobody came. About five o'clock, a procession of three cars reached the cemetery: a motor hearse, then Mr. Gatz, the minister, and Nick in the limousine, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg in Gatsby's station wagon, all wet to the skin. As they started through the gate, a car stopped and a man splashed after them—it was the owl-eyed man, whom Nick had found marvelling over Gatsby's books in the library one night three months before. He took off his glasses and wiped them to see the protecting canvas unrolled from Gatsby's grave. Nick heard someone murmur, "Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on," and the owl-eyed man said "Amen to that" in a brave voice. As they straggled back to the cars, the owl-eyed man spoke to Nick by the gate: "I couldn't get to the house. Neither could anybody else. Why, my God! they used to go there by the hundreds." He took off his glasses and wiped them again. "The poor son-of-a-bitch," he said.