The Great Gatsby - Summary
Summer Work - English
Narrated by new money Nick Carraway in 20s America, we get a glimpse into the life of
an upper class businessman battling his way through falsities in the evermore
materialistic world. Carraway moves from Minnesota to West Egg, a fictional area of
New York inhabited by the newly rich, making it a wealthy but unfashionable place of
residence. This move occurred in 1922, a time when Nick’s bond selling profession was
high on the rise, earning companies and employees a prosperous life - albeit not always
genuinely. Next door to Nick is garishly wealthy Jay Gatsby, his gothic mansion
populated by servants at day, populated by high flying cliques at night.
Unlike the community majoritive in West Egg, Nick was educated at Yale and has social
connections in East Egg - West Egg’s fashionable established sister. Driving out to West
Egg one evening to see his cousin, Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, he meets his
future love interest, Jordan Baker. She is boisterously cynical, yet beautifully
enchanting. Whilst he is there, Nick learns that the Buchanan’s relationship isn’t
exemplary as it seems; Tom has a mistress who lives in the Valley of Ashes, a murky no-
man's-land between West Egg and New York City. His lover, Myrtle Wilson, is also
married to one George Wilson, a rundown automobile garage owner. When we read of
Tom meeting with Myrtle for the first time in the novel, he loses his temper at Myrtle’s
mocking and breaks her nose. This is the reader’s first insight into Tom’s uncontrollable
anger and obsessive, abusive behaviour towards his wife and lover.
Eventually, after being integrated within extravagance, Nick earns an invitation to one
of Gatsby’s storied parties, held on Saturday nights. At the occasion, Nick encounters
Jordan and together they meet the shrouded Gatsby, a young English man who takes
delight in petting everyone ‘old sport.’ Later, Jordan speaks to Gatsby individually and
through Jordan, Nick assembles further knowledge about him and his acquired wealth.
We learn that Gatsby has been in love with Daisy since 1917, when they met, and his
excess luxury is simply to impress her. He spends many a night staring at the green light
at the end of her dock, he shows Nick, and recruits him to arrange a meeting between
himself and his unrequited love.
Doing as he is told, Nick invites Daisy for tea at his house, ‘forgetting’ to mention that
Gatsby will be there also. Their love is revitalised after an initially uncomfortable
reintroduction, so they begin an affair.
