Text Connections

I felt a personal connection to the emotions and denial that Nick was experiencing over the death of his good and beloved friend Gatsby. Nick and Gatsby grew a very close relationship over the course of the story, and his death came to much of a shock to Nick. I can relate to Nick’s emotions and his feeling of not wanting to believe the truth of his good friends death. When grieving over the death of someone who is very close to you, it is difficult to accept the facts, and in order to avoid the pain one feels that they must avoid anything that may remind them of their lost loved one. Nick claims that he can “vividly still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant [noises] from [Gatsby’s] garden” and felt as if Gatsby presence was still very much alive (179). This statement reminded me of the book The Death and Life of Charlie Saint Cloud by Ben Sherwood, which tells the story of a boy and his little brother who dies in a horrific car crash. While trying to overcome his grief, he starts to believe that he can still see and interact with his little brother even though he is clearly dead, just as Nick claims to be able to see Gatsby’s huge parties going on even though he knows that Gatsby is long gone.