Said by
Meyer Wolfsheim to Nick Carraway after the murder of Jay Gatsby, the former’s business
partner and the latter’s “friend”*.
On the
surface, the first sentence is a wonderful quote and a great mantra to live one’s
life by.
The second
sentence, again taking this at surface level, isn’t quite so great – what Wolfsheim
means is that after the subject of one’s friendship dies, one ought not to get
involved with areas surrounding them. However, it is incredibly important to
allow yourself to grieve, in whatever way, and to ask people to “leave
everything alone” after a death is to ask the impossible.
However,
we shouldn’t feel sorry for Wolfsheim here. He’s not asking the impossible of
himself with his “own rule” – he wouldn’t grieve if he had allowed himself to. This
quote from the businessman is said to our narrator Nick Carraway as an excuse
to skip Gatsby’s funeral.
And so the
characterisation of Wolfsheim is complete. His indifference towards Gatsby as
anything other than a (shady) business partner (read: money maker) generated by
Fitzgerald here is used to further the impression of him as a cold-hearted,
self-interested man only concerned with making himself money.
Should one
regard the character of Wolfsheim as a symbol for the novel’s theme of the
American Dream, we can then transfer those qualities to Fitzgerald’s commentary
on this issue. From this, we can extrapolate that Fitzgerald uses Wolfsheim as
a tool to criticise the American Dream and exhibit the moral decline of those
who pursued it at the time. Wolfsheim’s “us” is empty to him, but in truth his
quote, and its implicit themes, acts as a mouthpiece for all the other
characters who didn’t attend the funeral.
In this
way, at this moment Fitzgerald uses Wolfsheim as a foil for Nick, the man at
the other end of the conversation. Nick is trying to organise Gatsby’s funeral –
Wolfsheim is skipping it. Wolfsheim feels no guilt, Nick’s choice to arrange
the funeral is driven by guilt, and Wolfsheim’s quote subtly reproaches Nick.
Was Nick
truly a friend to Gatsby? Discuss in the comments below…
*read those quote marks as you will…
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