The Great Gatsby

    The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Takes place 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 new rich, a group who have  expanded way too quickly & made their fortunes rapidly and to overcome establishments  of social connections. Nick’s next-door neighbor in  West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic mansion and throws extraordinary parties every Saturday night.

     Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage. Jordan tells him 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. Not long after this,Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, 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 eventually garners an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. He encounters  Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.” Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 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 now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.

    After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of Daisy’s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such love and passion he cannot hide. Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal and his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her loyalty is to Tom, and Tom arrogantly sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

    When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick discovers that Gatsby wasn't that hit Myrtle but 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 jumped into the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, he later goes to Gatsby’s mansion and finds him in the pool 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, and of course his way of the American dream has ended for Jay Gatsby. In the end Nick was the only real friend Gatsby had and even opened up to his personal life without all the rumors people would make of him. Everyone surrounded Gatsby were just careless people whom only cared about wealth and nothing more.