The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway begins by presenting himself as an observant Midwesterner who tries to reserve judgment. After Yale and the war, he moves East in spring 1922 to enter the bond business and rents a small house in West Egg, next to the mansion of Jay Gatsby. Nick visits his cousin Daisy Buchanan in East Egg, where she lives with her wealthy, forceful husband, Tom Buchanan. At dinner he meets Jordan Baker, a detached professional golfer. The evening exposes the Buchanans’ emptiness: Tom airs racist theories, a phone call reveals his affair in New York, and Daisy masks deep unhappiness with charm and cynicism. Returning home, Nick sees Gatsby standing alone, reaching across the bay toward a distant green light.

Tom soon drags Nick into the valley of ashes, a desolate industrial wasteland watched over by the faded billboard eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. At George Wilson’s garage, Tom arranges to meet George’s wife, Myrtle Wilson, his mistress. In New York, Tom and Myrtle host a drunken apartment party with Myrtle’s sister Catherine and neighbors. Myrtle plays at sophistication, scorns George, and boasts of her connection to Tom. The gathering reveals social pretension and cruelty beneath the glamour Nick has entered. When Myrtle repeatedly says Daisy’s name, Tom violently breaks her nose, showing the brutality behind his privilege.

Nick is later formally invited to one of Gatsby’s enormous parties, where music, food, rumors, and strangers fill the mansion. Guests gossip that Gatsby may be a murderer or spy, but few know anything true about him. Nick meets Owl-Eyes, a drunken guest amazed that Gatsby’s library contains real books, and then unknowingly speaks with Gatsby himself. Gatsby is courteous, sober, and oddly separate from his own spectacle. He asks to speak privately with Jordan, who later hints that she has learned an astonishing secret. Nick also describes his summer routines in New York and his guarded attraction to Jordan, while recognizing her dishonesty.

Gatsby begins courting Nick’s trust. On a drive to New York he claims wealthy Midwestern origins, Oxford education, European adventures, and wartime honors, producing a medal and photograph when Nick doubts him. At lunch he introduces Nick to Meyer Wolfsheim, a criminal associate connected to the fixing of the 1919 World Series, suggesting the shadowy source of Gatsby’s fortune. Jordan then reveals Gatsby’s secret: years earlier in Louisville, Daisy loved Gatsby when he was a young officer. Before marrying Tom, she drunkenly tried to call off the wedding after receiving a letter, but she went through with it. Gatsby bought his West Egg mansion to be near Daisy and hoped she would appear at one of his parties. He now wants Nick to invite Daisy to tea so he can meet her again.

Nick agrees. Gatsby nervously prepares Nick’s cottage with flowers and has the grass cut. The reunion begins awkwardly, but after Nick leaves Gatsby and Daisy alone, their old intimacy returns. Gatsby takes Daisy and Nick through his mansion, showing Daisy the rooms, clothes, and trophies that represent the life he built for her. Daisy cries over his shirts, while Gatsby realizes that the green light’s symbolic power has changed now that Daisy is physically present. Nick senses that Gatsby’s immense dream may exceed any real person, but Gatsby and Daisy draw together as he leaves them alone.

Nick then explains Gatsby’s true origins. Born James Gatz in North Dakota, Gatsby reinvented himself as a young man after meeting millionaire Dan Cody, who took him aboard his yacht and taught him the style of wealth. Gatsby lost a promised inheritance to Ella Kaye, but retained a vision of grandeur and self-creation. Tom later encounters Gatsby socially and treats him with condescension. When Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby’s parties, Daisy is both charmed by moments of romance and repelled by the vulgar energy of West Egg. Gatsby is distressed because she did not enjoy herself. He tells Nick that Daisy must say she never loved Tom, after which they can return to Louisville and erase the past. Nick warns that the past cannot be repeated, but Gatsby insists it can.

Gatsby stops giving parties and dismisses his servants to prevent gossip because Daisy visits him in the afternoons. During a tense lunch at the Buchanans’ on a sweltering day, Daisy openly signals her love for Gatsby, and Tom realizes the affair. The group goes to New York, with Tom driving Gatsby’s car with Nick and Jordan, and Gatsby driving Tom’s coupé with Daisy. At Wilson’s garage, Tom learns George intends to take Myrtle west because he suspects her infidelity. Myrtle sees Jordan in Tom’s car and mistakes her for Tom’s wife, deepening the confusion.

At the Plaza Hotel, Tom confronts Gatsby. Gatsby demands that Daisy say she never loved Tom, but under pressure Daisy admits she loved Gatsby and also once loved Tom. This breaks Gatsby’s dream of pure recovery. Tom exposes Gatsby’s bootlegging and shady dealings, causing Daisy to retreat emotionally. Confident he has won, Tom sends Daisy home with Gatsby in Gatsby’s yellow car. In the valley of ashes, Myrtle runs into the road, believing the car is connected to Tom, and is struck and killed. Gatsby later tells Nick that Daisy was driving, but he intends to take the blame. Nick sees Tom and Daisy together in their kitchen, speaking like conspirators, while Gatsby keeps useless watch outside.

Unable to sleep, Nick visits Gatsby at dawn and urges him to leave before the car is traced. Gatsby refuses, still waiting for Daisy to choose him. He tells Nick more of his past with Daisy: as a poor officer, he let her believe he belonged to her world, then lost her while he was delayed by war and Oxford. Before going to work, Nick tells Gatsby he is worth the whole group of them, the only compliment he ever gives him. Meanwhile, Michaelis stays with the grieving George Wilson, who finds evidence of Myrtle’s lover and identifies the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg with God. George concludes that the owner of the yellow car killed Myrtle and sets out to find him. He reaches Gatsby’s mansion, shoots Gatsby in the pool, and then kills himself.

After Gatsby’s death, Nick is left to handle the aftermath. Reporters and police swarm the mansion, while Daisy and Tom disappear. Meyer Wolfsheim refuses to attend the funeral, and former partygoers vanish. Gatsby’s father, Henry C. Gatz, arrives from Minnesota, proud and shaken, showing Nick evidence of his son’s youthful discipline and ambition. On the rainy funeral day, only a few people attend, including Henry Gatz, servants, a minister, a postman, and Owl-Eyes. Daisy sends no message or flowers.

Disillusioned, Nick prepares to leave the East. He ends his strained relationship with Jordan and later confronts Tom, who admits he told Wilson that Gatsby owned the car, justifying the act as deserved. Nick sees Tom and Daisy as careless people who create destruction and retreat into wealth while others suffer. Before returning West, Nick reflects on Gatsby’s faith in the green light and on the larger dream of striving toward a future that remains bound to the past.