In “The Great Gatsby,“ readers are thrust into New York in the 1920s and the lives of Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom Buchanan. The relationships between these central characters are defined by their understanding of the past, social climbing, and their desire for wealth.
“The Great Gatsby“‘s introduction has Nick Carraway moving to New York from Minnesota in the summer of 1922. He intends to learn the bond business. The reader learns about the difference between the West Egg and East Egg districts of Long Island. Nick moves to the former, a wealthy area where the newly rich live. It’s less fashionable or well-established than East Egg, where the generationally wealthy and upper class live.
Nick soon meets a mysterious man, Jay Gatsby, his next-door neighbor. He lives in a huge mansion and throws outrageous parties every Saturday night. He travels to East Egg soon after moving in to visit his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The two are socially popular and have a great deal of money. Tom is a large man with gruff habits and prone to racist comments. He also meets Jordan Baker, a professional golfer, at their home. The three live in luxury and often demonstrate their disregard and lack of empathy for others.
Nick Carraway is a wide-eyed dreamer, fresh out of Minnesota, thinking New York has something for him. He’s got ideals, sure. But he is clearly naive, just floating along and watching everyone’s mess. He thinks he’s just a bystander, but the life around him pulls him right into the mess.
It’s that night that Nick sees Gatsby for the first time. He’s standing at the end of his dock, looking across the water. Nick spots a green light in the distance. A light he eventually learns is on the end of Daisy’s dock.
Soon after, Nick travels with Tom to see Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s most recent mistress. He openly flaunts this relationship even though Nick is his wife’s cousin. Her husband runs a garage in a run-down section of the city. It’s an area very different from where the main characters live. Myrtle and Tom fight about Daisy, Tom’s wife, and the evening ends when Tom hits Myrtle, breaking her nose.
Nick turns up to one of Gatsby’s parties after this incident, knowing that everyone who comes to his home is accepted into the gathering. No one is ever turned away, nor is anyone ever invited. Gatsby is mysterious, staying away from his guests and preferring to watch everything rather than participate himself. Gatsby and Jordan speak briefly, and the latter expresses amazement at what she hears.
Gatsby and Nick drive into the city where Nick meets Meyer Wolfshiem, one of Gatsby’s underworld associates. He’s linked to organized crime. At this time, the reader learns that Gatsby told Jordan he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is still in love with her. His parties are only an opportunity to see her. He hopes every night that she shows up. The two met initially when Gatsby was in the army. He didn’t have the money to support the kind of life she wanted to have. But, in the intervening years, he’s focused on making as much money as possible so that he could win her back.
The relationships between the characters—especially Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy and his desire to relive the past—are central to understanding the heart of the novel. Gatsby is a man chasing after a dream that no longer exists, just as the green light on Daisy’s dock symbolizes an unreachable future.
On the other hand, Daisy found someone with more money to marry. It turns out that Gatsby even selected his home so that he’d be across the sound from her, as close as he could get.
Gatsby asks Nick to help him reestablish his connection with Daisy, a decision that sparks the story’s rising action. But he’s worried Daisy isn’t going to want to see him. This results in Nick inviting Daisy to his house without informing her that Gatsby was all invited. The two reconnect and start an affair, making Nick feel odd. The three go to Gatsby’s house, where he shows Daisy around to prove how far he’s come since they knew one another years earlier.
The reader learns more about Gatsby’s past, including his time working for Dan Cody on a yacht. When he was seventeen, Gatsby changed his name from James Gatz and determined to make a different kind of life for himself. Now, Gatsby believes that he can recapture the love he had in the past, marking a dichotomy between the type of peers Gatsby turned himself into and the person he’s trying to reclaim.
Tom grows suspicious about the relationship between his wife and Gatsby and soon realizes that Gatsby is in love with her. Daisy doesn’t hide her affection for Gatsby either. Tom eventually confronts Gatsby in the Plaza Hotel, a confrontation that marks the novel’s turning point. Gatsby tries to get Daisy to admit that she’s never loved Tom and it was always him that she cared for. She’s unable to do that. Tom tells Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal who made his fortune from bootlegging and other illegal activities. She returns to Tom, and he sends her home. Myrtle’s husband has also learned that his wife is having an affair, but he doesn’t know who the man is.
Tom Buchanan is a selfish, arrogant man. Born into wealth, he uses his money and power to control others. He treats people like objects—his wife Daisy, his mistress Myrtle, and even his friends. Tom doesn’t hide his affair, but he’s furious when Gatsby threatens his pride. He’s racist and classist, full of outdated ideas that only serve him. In the end, Tom walks away from the chaos he helped create, showing no guilt for the harm he caused.
The novel’s climax occurs when it is revealed that there’s been a car accident. Daisy was driving, hitting Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, with the car. But Gatsby wants to take the blame. Myrtle’s husband, George, is informed of the death and decides that Myrtle’s lover must’ve driven the car. He finds Gatsby at the mansion, shoots him, and then kills himself. Gatsby has a small funeral that isn’t attended by any of those who took advantage of his hospitality. No one seems especially bothered by the man’s death. Nick, having a relationship with Jordan, ends it and moves back to Minnesota. He is determined to escape the vapid people in Gatsby’s circle.
In the story’s falling action, it is revealed that that Tom told George that Gatsby owned the car that hit Myrtle, a roundabout way of naming him as Myrtle’s lover rather than taking the blame for that himself. Nick is disgusted by the actions of those he briefly considered friends.
The book’s resolution shows Nick contemplating what happened to Gatsby’s dream of a life with Daisy. It was corrupted by money and the desire for social climbing. He concludes that the time of the American dream, like Gatsby’s dream, is over.