Our citation format in this guide is chapter. We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book.
To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it Paragraph beginning of chapter; middle of chapter; on: end of chapter , or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. Nick grew up in the "middle West," what we call the Midwest , in a wealthy family that was "something of a clan" 1. His family made their money from a wholesale hardware business his grandfather's brother began after sending a substitute to fight for him in the Civil War.
Nick attended Yale, like his father, and then fought in WWI. Upon his return, he found the Midwest incredibly boring and so set off for New York to become a bond salesman: "I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business" 1.
Of course, we later find out that Nick's also getting away from a woman who expects that they're getting married, but Nick downplays this fact in his narration, which is one of our clues to his dishonesty. To see how Nick's background intersects with the stories of the other characters in the novel, check out our Great Gatsby timeline.
This is a summary of everything Nick does during the novel, leaving out flashbacks he hears from other characters. For a complete summary of the plot, check out our book summary! The year is , the stock market is booming, and Nick has found work as a bond salesman. In Chapter 1 , he is invited to his cousin Daisy Buchanan's home to have dinner with her and her husband Tom, an old college acquaintance of his. There he meets Jordan Baker, Daisy's friend and a professional golfer.
In Chapter 2 , while hanging out with Tom he ends up being dragged first to George Wilson's garage to meet Tom's mistress Myrtle Wilson, and then to the apartment Tom keeps for Myrtle in Manhattan. They invite over a bunch of friends and a drunken party ensues. Nick witnesses some of Tom's ugliest behavior, including his physical abuse of Myrtle. In Chapter 3 , Nick is invited to attend one of Jay Gatsby's famous parties. There, he finally meets Gatsby, and also sees Jordan again.
After seeing Jordan again at that party, they begin to date, and also does his best to win over her old Aunt, who controls her money. Once he starts dating Jordan he vows to stop sending weekly letters to the woman back in the Midwest. Though, in typical Nick fashion, he never confirms that he stops sending the letters.
He also mentions a brief affair with a woman in his office that he lets fizzle out. After meeting Gatsby in Chapter 3 they begin spending time together. In Chapter 4 they drive to Manhattan together. At first he's pretty wary of Gatsby and his story. This wariness of Gatsby is compounded by Nick's poor and very anti-Semitic!
Later in Chapter 4, Nick meets up with Jordan in the plaza hotel and she tells him about Daisy and Gatsby's romantic history which she heard all about at the previous party. Nick agrees to arrange a meeting between Daisy and Gatsby, which occurs in Chapter 5. The trio had stopped by Gatsby's house and Gatsby misreads how serious they are about having dinner together. Later, Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby's parties. Tom is immediately suspicious about where Gatsby gets his money while Daisy has a bad time, looking down her nose at the affair.
Gatsby confides in Nick afterwards that he wants to repeat his past with Daisy. Gatsby is hoping Daisy will tell Tom that she never loved him and is leaving him for Gatsby, but starts to feel nervous doing that in Tom's house.
Daisy is anxious as well and suggests they all go to Manhattan. Nick rides to Manhattan with Tom and Jordan, in Gatsby's yellow car. They stop by the Wilson's garage, where he learns that George has discovered Myrtle's affair, but not the man she is cheating on him with. In Manhattan, the group rents a room at the Plaza hotel. A bunch of secrets come out, including the fact that Tom knows Gatsby is a bootlegger. Daisy tries to say she never loved Tom but can't stand by the statement, Tom, satisfied he's won, tells Gatsby to take Daisy back home in his yellow car while he drives back with Nick and Jordan.
On the way back, they come along Myrtle Wilson's death scene: she has been hit by the yellow car. Later that night, Nick stays outside of the Buchanans' house while waiting for a cab back to West Egg, too disgusted with their behavior to go inside. He sees Gatsby waiting outside—he wants to make sure Daisy is alright. Meanwhile, Nick spots Tom and Daisy inside looking like co-conspirators. In Chapter 8 , Nick goes to work but can't concentrate. Jordan calls him to say where she's staying, but he's disgusted she doesn't seem shaken by Myrtle's death and they fight and break up.
Nick later spends time with Gatsby in his mansion and learns his whole life story. The next day, Gatsby is shot and killed by George Wilson and George kills himself.
In Chapter 9 , Nick struggles to arrange a funeral for Gatsby, which in the end is only attended by Gatsby's father and Owl Eyes. Disgusted with the morally lawless life in the East, he decides to retreat back home to the Midwest.
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. The first lines establish Nick as thoughtful, thorough, privileged, and judgmental. This line also sets the tone for the first few pages, where Nick tells us about his background and tries to encourage the reader to trust his judgment.
While he comes off as thoughtful and observant, we also get the sense he is judgmental and a bit snobby. To see more analysis of why the novel begins how it does, and what Nick's father's advice means for him as a character and as a narrator, read our article on the beginning of The Great Gatsby.
When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.
Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. Another quote from the first few pages of the novel, this line sets up the novel's big question: why does Nick become so close to Gatsby, given that Gatsby represents everything he hates? Although The Franklin lived for pleasure, he managed to make his household free to all the country and people saw him as a good model among landed upper class.
No one has any idea who he is because he is watching from afar or blending in with the numerous guests at his parties. People do not realize who he is because he mixes in with the crowd and does not converse with any of the other party goers. His behavior creates a mystery about him and who he really is, which causes his guests to speculate about him and his absence at his outings. It just so happens that they stumble upon each other. Nick has a much higher regard for Gatsby in the sense that he was a part of World War 1.
He was not a rich man to begin with and he had a dream he wanted to achieve. That he is mysterious and one of the most respectable men Nick Carraway has ever known. After learning, that Gatsby came from a dirt-poor family from rural North Dakota.
After his meeting with Gatsby, Nick had an urge to recall this person he just met. This shows that something about Gatsby catches his eyes. The Great Gatsby Have you ever watched someone or something change overtime?
In the book F. Through Nick moving to the big city and realizing how terrible and inconsiderate everyone truly is, Tom being caught up in his own world of cheating on his wife and his arrogancy, and Daisy being careless, and destroying everyone's lives in the process. Tom has changed throughout this book, he was living in his own little egotistic world which came crashing down. In the beginning Tom was organized, arrogant, rich, athletic, and loved cheating on his wife.
Nick has a high opinion of Gatsby and his reason for thinking this is Gatsby's polite manners, his mysteriousness and his wealth. All these characteristics are what make Gatsby the man he is and people respect that. The eyes of Doctor T. Eckleburg work in the same fashion, although their meaning is less fixed. Until George Wilson decides that they are the eyes of God, representing a moral imperative on which he must act, the eyes are simply an unsettling, unexplained image, as they stare down over the valley of ashes.
Eckleburg thus emphasize the lack of a fixed relationship between symbols and what they symbolize: the eyes could mean anything to any observer, but they tend to make observers feel as though they are the ones being scrutinized. They seem to stare down at the world blankly, without the need for meaning that drives the human characters of the novel.
In reading and interpreting The Great Gatsby , it is at least as important to consider how characters think about symbols as it is to consider the qualities of the symbols themselves. How does the geography of the novel dictate its themes and characters?
What role does setting play in The Great Gatsby? Each of the four important geographical locations in the novel—West Egg, East Egg, the valley of ashes, and New York City—corresponds to a particular theme or type of character encountered in the story.
West Egg is like Gatsby, full of garish extravagance, symbolizing the emergence of the new rich alongside the established aristocracy of the s. East Egg is like the Buchanans, wealthy, possessing high social status, and powerful, symbolizing the old upper class that continued to dominate the American social landscape. Gatsby sought out the American dream in order to win over the love of Daisy which creates a different perception of himself to Nick.
Nick perceives Gatsby as a man dwelling on the past. Get Access. Read More. Popular Essays.
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