Chapter 9 Practice Quiz — The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 9
What do Tom and Daisy do immediately after Gatsby is killed?
They leave town that same afternoon with their baggage, without leaving an address or any way to reach them.
How does Catherine protect her sister Myrtle's reputation at the inquest?
She swears that Myrtle had never seen Gatsby and was completely happy with Wilson, reducing Wilson's motive to simple madness rather than jealousy.
What does the phone call from Slagle reveal about Gatsby?
It confirms Gatsby's involvement in illegal activities—Slagle reports that someone named Young Parke was caught passing stolen bonds, not realizing Gatsby is dead.
Who is the only former party guest to attend Gatsby's funeral?
Owl Eyes, the bespectacled man who once admired Gatsby's library. He arrives late, splashing through the rain, and says "The poor son-of-a-bitch."
Why does Klipspringer call Nick?
Not to offer condolences or attend the funeral, but to ask that a pair of tennis shoes he left at Gatsby's house be sent to him. Nick hangs up on him.
What reason does Wolfsheim give for not attending Gatsby's funeral?
He says he never likes to "get mixed up in it" when a man gets killed, and his rule is to "let everything alone" after someone dies.
What does Nick decide to do after Gatsby's death?
He decides to leave the East and return to the Midwest, feeling that the East is "haunted" and "distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction."
What does the phrase "careless people" reveal about Nick's judgment of Tom and Daisy?
Nick concludes they "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” It is his definitive moral verdict on them.
Who is Henry C. Gatz and what does his arrival reveal about Gatsby?
He is Gatsby's father, a humble old man from Minnesota. His arrival reveals that Gatsby came from poverty, that his real name was Jimmy Gatz, and that his father knew nothing of his criminal enterprises.
How does Tom justify telling Wilson that Gatsby owned the car?
Tom claims Wilson had a revolver and was "crazy enough to kill" him, and insists Gatsby "had it coming" because he supposedly ran over Myrtle "like you'd run over a dog."
What does Jordan Baker accuse Nick of in their final conversation?
She accuses him of throwing her over and of not being the honest, straightforward person she thought he was. Nick admits, "I'm thirty. I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor."
What role does Owl Eyes play at the funeral?
He is the only former party guest who attends, arriving at the cemetery at the last moment. He remarks in disbelief, "They used to go there by the hundreds," highlighting the cruel irony of the empty funeral.
How does the novel frame Gatsby's story as a commentary on the American Dream?
Nick connects Gatsby's longing for the green light to the original wonder of the Dutch sailors seeing America for the first time, suggesting that Gatsby's personal dream mirrors the nation's foundational myth—and that both are doomed to be "borne back ceaselessly into the past."
What does the East vs. Midwest contrast represent in Chapter 9?
The East represents moral corruption, carelessness, and false glamour, while the Midwest represents authenticity and rootedness. Nick declares the story was really "a story of the West" all along—all the main characters were Westerners "subtly unadaptable to Eastern life."
Why does Nick erase the obscene word from Gatsby's steps on his last visit?
It is a small act of loyalty and preservation—Nick protects Gatsby's memory and dignity even after everyone else has abandoned him. It also symbolizes Nick's futile desire to restore order to a corrupted world.
What is the tension between past and future in the novel's closing passage?
Gatsby reached toward the future (the green light) but was really trying to recapture the past (his moment with Daisy). The closing metaphor suggests all human striving shares this paradox: we push forward while being pulled backward by history and memory.
What is the significance of the contrast between the lavish parties and the empty funeral?
It is a structural irony that exposes the superficiality of Gatsby's social world. Hundreds came for free liquor and spectacle, but not one returned to honor him in death, revealing that his wealth bought entertainment, not genuine human connection.
How does the Hopalong Cassidy schedule function as a literary allusion?
It echoes Benjamin Franklin's self-improvement regimen from his Autobiography, connecting young Jimmy Gatz to the foundational American myth that discipline and effort guarantee success—an ideal the novel ultimately exposes as hollow.
What is Nick's El Greco vision and what does it represent?
Nick describes a recurring dream of West Egg as a surreal nightscape in the style of El Greco: grotesque houses, solemn men carrying a drunken woman on a stretcher to the wrong house. It represents his psychological distortion of the East and its moral corruption.
How does the circular structure of the novel reinforce its themes?
The novel opens with Nick arriving in the East and closes with his departure, mirroring the "boats against the current" metaphor: despite forward motion, everything returns to its starting point, reinforcing the impossibility of escaping the past.
What does "pasquinade" mean as used in Chapter 9?
A pasquinade is a satirical piece of writing or a lampoon. Nick fears Wilson's suspicions about Myrtle will be served up as a "racy pasquinade" in the press.
What does "adventitious" mean in the phrase "the adventitious authority of his voice"?
Adventitious means coming from outside, not inherent—the detective's authority came from his tone and manner rather than from actual knowledge, yet it shaped the newspaper narrative.
Complete the quotation: "So we beat on, boats against the current..."
"...borne back ceaselessly into the past." This is the final line of The Great Gatsby and one of the most famous closing sentences in American literature.
Who says "The poor son-of-a-bitch" and what is the context?
Owl Eyes says this at Gatsby's funeral, standing by the gate in the rain. It is a raw, compassionate epitaph—the only genuine expression of pity for Gatsby from anyone who knew him socially.
What does Nick mean when he says, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy"?
Nick means they live without moral accountability. They cause destruction—Myrtle's death, Gatsby's death, Wilson's death—and then retreat behind their wealth, leaving others to deal with the consequences. "Careless" here means not merely negligent but fundamentally indifferent to human life.