At the end of the story I was not in total shock about what had happened to Mr. Gatsby or Wilson but more in shock about what happened with Tom and Daisy. In the end, the two disappear without any information left of their whereabouts. What shocked me the most was how Daisy just picked up and left without a word to Gatsby. She was supposedly leaving Tom and in love with Gatsby. This changed when while reading we find out she does not even acknowledge the fact Gatsby was shot.
“I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly inadaptable to Eastern life.”
This quote is what struck me the most at the end of the book. It gave me great thought as I realized in Nick’s mind people were characterized as either from the West or the East. The people and way of life was very different in his eyes. He believed the gruesome lifestyle of the east shaped the behaviors of each and every character. What also caught my attention was the part in the book where Nick and Tom encounter each other. He finds out Tom told Wilson about Gatsby which draws Nick to the conclusion Tom and Daisy are rotten people who escape their past by the walls of their money for protection. The end of the book is where everything comes together and we realized not every story has a happy ending. I think this is what I liked most about the book. Not everyone gets what they want and some are left unhappy. We never really find out whether or not Daisy left with Tom by choice or if she was forced and deep down really wanted to be with Gatsby. This unanswered question made the ending all the better.