Tuesday 3 November 2015

Where are Tom and Daisy at the end of the story?

At the end of Chapter 7, Nick observes Daisy and Tom after the accident that killed Myrtle:


They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale — and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.


Nick already knows that Gatsby has lost the fight for Daisy, and she and Tom will...

At the end of Chapter 7, Nick observes Daisy and Tom after the accident that killed Myrtle:



They weren’t happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale — and yet they weren’t unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture, and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.



Nick already knows that Gatsby has lost the fight for Daisy, and she and Tom will stay together.  After Gatsby's death at the hand of Wilson, Nick calls to Tom and Daisy's house to tell them about Gatsby, but they have already left, taking baggage with them and leaving no forwarding address.  Nick later runs into Tom on Fifth Avenue in New York City, presumably where Tom and Daisy ran the day of Gatsby death.  Nick's comment about them sums it up:



they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .



It does not really matter where they ended up; they will always create messes where they live (think of Tom and all of his illicit affairs) and move on, leaving chaos in their wake.

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