About the Book

The Great Gatsby

Narrator Nick Carraway moves to New York in the summer of 1922.  He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the nouveau riche.   Nick's next-door neighbor is the mysterious Jay Gatsby a garish man who flaunts his money by hosting extravagant parties every Saturday night.  

Nick, unlike most inhabitants of West Egg, has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island.  Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom.  There he meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship.  Nick also learns that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City.  At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose. 

As the summer progresses, Nick garners an invitation to one of Gatsby's legendary parties. He then meets Gatsby, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone "old sport." Later, Nick learns that Gatsby knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917, and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy.  Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house and after an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection, their love rekindles, and an affair begins.

Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby.  He watches Gatsby stare at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her.  Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him.  Tom confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal and then, (1 Daisy realizes that her allegiance is with Tom; and (2 Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him. 

During the return trip, Gatsby's car strikes and kills Myrtle.  Back in Long Island, Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame.  The next day, Tom tells Myrtle's husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car.  George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been driven by her lover, he finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead.  He then fatally shoots himself. 

Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby's life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast.  Nick reflects that just as Gatsby's dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth.  Though Gatsby's power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him "great," Nick asserts that the era of dreaming--both Gatsby's dream and the American dream--is over. 

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