Ahh... Gatsby... (Re: Introduction)

Lauren N Passot (madbravo@juno.com)
Wed, 16 Sep 1998 15:24:35 -0500 

It took me a while to find my copy of "The Great Gatsby" as well. Now
that I've found it I can properly respond. A verbatim quote of the
section you referred to, below.

" "This is Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Buchanan."
	They shook hands briefly, and a strained, unfamiliar look of
embarrassment came over Gatsby's face.
	"How have you been, anyhow?" demanded Tom of me. "How'd you
happen to come up this far to eat?"
	"I've been having lunch with Mr. Gatsby."
	I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there."

I simply thought of this that because of Gatsby's obsessions with Daisy
that he probably knew whom Tom was. After all, he knew exactly were she
lived despite the fact that they had been apart for so long during the
war.

The other section to which you referred was that of the car accident. I
find nothing wrong with the car accident chapter. The reason being that
the car accident was witnessed. Here is the textual evidence:

	"The you Greek, Michaelis, who ran the coffee joint beside the
ash heaps was the principal witness at the inquest. He had slept through
the heat until after five, when he strolled over to the garage, and found
George Wilson sick in his office-really sick, pale as his own pale hair
and shaking all over. Michaelis advised him to go to bed, but Wilson
refused, saying that he'd miss a lot of business if he did. While his
neighbor was trying to persuade him a violent racket broke out overhead.
	"I've got my wife locked in up there," explained Wilson calmly.
"She's going to stay there till the day after to-morrow, and then we're
going to move away."
	Michaelis was astonished; they had been neighbors for four years,
and Wilson had never seemed faintly capable of such a statement.
Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn't working, he
sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the  people and the cars that
passed along the road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in
an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own.
	So naturally Michaelis tried to find out what had happened, but
Wilson wouldn't say a word -instead he began to throw curious, suspicious
glances at his visitor and ask him what he'd been doing at certain times
on certain days. Just as the latter was getting uneasy, some workmen came
past the door bound for his restaurant and Michaelis took the opportunity
to get away, intending to come back later. But he didn't. He supposed he
forgot, that's all. When he came outside again, a little after seven, he
was reminded of the conversation because he hear Mrs. Wilson's voice,
loud and scolding, down-stairs in the garage.
	"Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you
dirty little coward!"
	A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and
shouting-before he could move from his door the business was over.
	The "death car" as the newspapers called it, didn't stop; it came
out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment and then
disappeared around the next bend. Michaelis wasn't even sure of its color
he told the first policeman that it was light green. The other car, the
one going toward New York, came to rest a hundred yards beyond, and its
driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently
extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick dark blood with the
dusk."

There are two witnesses. Michaelis and the driver going to New York.

Best,
Lauren


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