The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Details Of The Book

Title: The Great Gatsby
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Publication: First published in 1925

About The Author

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American writer of long and short stories. His most famous novel is The Great Gatsby, which describes the empty, hedonistic, and conflicted spirits and minds of 1920s Americans in the midst of song and dance.

He completed a total of four full-length novels in his lifetime: “Earthly Paradise,” “Beauty and Destruction,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Tender is the Night,” with a fifth unfinished novel, “The Last Tycoon,” published only after his death. He has also written 164 short stories in magazines.

About The Story

Main Characters

• Nick Carraway
  Yale graduate, from the Midwest, WWI veteran. Newly moved to live in West Egg at the beginning of the story, age 29 (later 30). He is the first narrator of the novel, a neighbor of Gatsby and a stockbroker. Nick is easy-going, sometimes sarcastic in his words and somewhat optimistic, but these personalities fade as the plot progresses.
• Jay Gatsby
  Young, mysterious millionaire with some business background (later revealed to be selling bootleg alcohol) from North Dakota. He was obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, and the two had fallen in love in World War I. According to Matthew J. Blakely’s biography of Fitzgerald, “Some Great Epics,” the characterization is based on smuggler and World War I officer Max Gerlach (M. Gerlach). Gatsby is said to have studied briefly at Trinity College, Oxford, England, after World War I.
• Daisy Buchanan
  A charming, passionate, superficial, narcissistic and wonderful woman who was considered a frivolous woman. She is the second cousin of Nick and wife of Tom Buchanan. Fitzgerald had an affair with Ginevra King, who is considered to be the inspiration for Daisy’s creation. Before marrying Tom, Daisy had an affair with Gatsby. Her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the main conflicts of the novel.
• Thomas Buchanan (Tom)
  A millionaire who lives in East Egg, Daisy’s husband. Tom is athletic, has a husky voice, is arrogant and cocky, and is a former football star at Yale University. Buchanan is similar to William Mitchell, who married Ginevra King. Buchanan and Mitchell were both Chicagoans who loved to play polo. Fitzgerald hated Ginevra’s father, and like him, Buchanan had attended Yale and was a white supremacist.
• Jordan Baker.
  An old friend of Daisy Buchanan’s, with “autumn leaf yellow” hair, an athletic physique, and a condescending attitude. For the majority of the story, she is Nick’s girlfriend; an amateur golfer with a bad reputation for dishonesty.
• George B. Wilson
  Garage owner and mechanic. Tom Buchanan and his wife Myrtle Wilson disliked him, calling him “so dumb he didn’t know he was alive.” When he learned of his wife’s misfortune, he mistook Gatsby’s death for his own, and then committed suicide.
• Myrtle Wilson
  George’s wife, Tom Buchanan’s mistress. Myrtle’s character is restless, eager to escape from the marriage, but for this reason met with misfortune. Myrtle accidentally crashed into Gatsby’s car (actually Daisy was driving, but Gatsby voluntarily took the responsibility).
• Meyer Wolfshiem
  Jewish, Gatsby’s mentor, gambles at the World Series of Baseball. Wolfshiem appears only twice in the novel and refuses to attend Gatsby’s funeral.

Plot Summary

The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran (and the novel’s narrator), has come to New York from the Midwest to make a living selling bonds. He rents a cabin in West Egg Village on Long Island, next door to Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is a young, mysterious millionaire who often throws lavish parties but rarely shows up; many people visit him for food and drink, and he is always a lonely man. Nick drives to East Egg Village to visit his cousin Daisy Fay Buchanan, whose husband, Tom Buchanan, was a college classmate of Nick’s. They introduce Nick to Miss Jordan Baker, a charming but slightly selfish young golfer; Nick thinks he’s in love with her. She tells Nick that Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the “Valley of Ashes”: an industrial dump between West Egg Village and New York City. Soon, Nick and Tom and Myrtle head to the apartment where they are rendezvoused for a debauched orgy. Myrtle brings up Daisy’s name several times, and in his anger, Tom punches Myrtle in the nose.

One summer day, Nick receives an invitation to a Gatsby party. He runs into Jordan Baker at the party and, having finally met Gatsby, discovers that Gatsby actually served in the same division as him during the war. Nick learns from Jordan that Gatsby fell in love with Daisy in 1917, but because he was going into the army, Daisy ended up marrying Tom Buchanan. After the war, he made a lot of money and bought a mansion on Long Island, looking out across the bay to Daisy’s home, hoping to “renew their relationship”. Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle and debauched orgies were just a way to attract Daisy so she would come back to him. Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a meeting with Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to his home for tea and hides the fact that Gatsby is there. After a moment of awkwardness, Gatsby and Daisy rekindle their love. They fall in love again, and Tom soon becomes suspicious. At a dinner party, Daisy speaks sweetly and unabashedly to Gatsby, and Tom’s suspicions come true. Although Tom has a mistress of his own, he is doubly angry that his wife is cheating on him. Tom forces everyone to travel to New York City and confront Gatsby in his suite at the Plaza Hotel, telling him that the story of the couple is beyond Gatsby’s comprehension. Not only that, he reveals that Gatsby sold moonshine and engaged in other shady business to get the wealth he has today. Daisy feels that she can not bear, just want to leave, Tom told Gatsby to drive her home.

Nick, Jordan and Tom drive home through the “Valley of Ashes” and find Tom’s mistress Myrtle hit and killed by Gatsby’s car. Afterwards, Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car, but Gatsby is reluctant to reveal the woman he loves so much. Myrtle’s husband George thought the owner of the car was the object of his wife’s affair and launched a search for it. Tom misleads George, and after the latter discovers that the owner of the car is Gatsby, he comes to the mansion, shoots himself, and then kills himself. Nick holds a funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, looks past the eastern lifestyle, and returns home to the Midwest.