The Great Gatsby (1925) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Nick Carraway: Narrator who lives next door to Gatsby. Nick Carraway, having graduated from Yale and fought in World War I, has returned home to begin a career. He is restless and has decided to move to New York to learn the bond business. The novel opens early in the summer of 1922 in West Egg, Long Island, where Nick has rented a house. He is Daisy Buchanan's cousin and is "new money."
• Jay Gatsby: Nick's next door neighbor, who throws lavish parties with money gained from dubious affairs. Nobody really knows him until he finally let someone in.
• Daisy Fay Buchanan: Nick's second cousin. She is married to Tom Buchanan. In love with Gatsby.
• Tom Buchanan: Daisy Buchanan's husband who also belongs to the "old money" scene. A very violent and abusive man however he can at times show his sensitivity towards Myrtle and later, Daisy. He was previously a football player.
• Jordan Baker: A friend of Daisy's. Golfer. Very confident and somewhat shallow.
• George B. Wilson: George is the dim-witted owner of a run-down garage in the Valley of Ashes. He is Myrtle's husband.
• Pammy Buchanan: The Buchanans' three-year-old daughter. She spends little time with her parents. She is mainly taken care of by the nurse.
• Henry C. Gatz: Gatsby's father.
• Mr. Klipspringer: Man who stays at Gatsby's house. Also, he plays the piano.
• Myrtle Wilson: Wife of George Wilson and knows Tom.
• Mr. Sloane: Friend of Tom Buchanan.
• Michaelis: Owner of a coffee shop next to George Wilson's garage.
• Catherine: Mrytle's sister.
• Owl Eyes: Owl Eyes likes to read books at Gatsby's parties. He find the gigantic collection amazing.
• Chester McKee: Mr. Chester McKee is a pale feminine man. He is in the photography game. Nick meets him at a party. Lucille McKee is friends with Myrtle.
• Meyer Wolfsheim: Jewish character who establishes Gatsby in the boot-legging business. Suspicious.
• Webster Civet: Doctor Webster Civet, drowned one summer up in Maine. Regular at Gatsby's parties. He lived in East Egg.
• Miss Baedeker: Minimal character who visits Gatsby's house briefly after a horse ride.
• Lucille McKee: Lucille McKee is Chester McKee's wife. They live downstairs from Myrtle Wilson's love nest. Her husband is a photographer.
• Bill Biloxi: Character who fainted at Tom and Daisy's wedding because of the heat
• Newton Orchid: Newton Orchid lived in West Egg. He was the owner of Films Par Excellence. A man who was well connect with the movies.
• Mr. Dan Cody: Add a description of this character.
• Ella Kaye: Don Cody's wife.
• Walter Chase
• Arthur Mizener

Quotes edit see section history

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• “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."”

  Nick Carraway

• “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

• “It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me and his white shirt front pressed against my arm — and so I told him I’d have to call a policeman but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn’t hardly know I wasn’t getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about over and over was "You can’t live forever, you can’t live forever."”

  Myrtle

• “And it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.”

  Nick Carraway

• “He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”

  Nick Carraway about Gatsby

• “Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”

  Nick on himself

• “With every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up, and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the room.”

  Nick about Gatsby and Daisy

• “That’s my Middle West . . . the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark. . . . I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.”

  Nick Carraway

• “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”

  Nick Carraway

• “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”

  Nick Carraway

• “And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties, there isn't any privacy.”

  Jordan

• “You're a rotten driver, either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all." "I am careful." "No, you're not." "Well, other people are." "What's that got to do with it?" "They'll keep out of my way. It takes two to make an accident.”

  Nick, Jordan

• “I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

  Daisy

• “Suppose you meet someone just as careless as yourself?" "I hope I never will.”

  Nick, Jordan

• “I'm thirty. I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.”

  Nick Carraway

• “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything ... No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up his ghostly heart.”

  Nick Carraway

• “My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires--all for eighty dollars a month.”

• “He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”

• “One thing's sure and nothing's surer- the rich get richer and the poor get...children.”

• “There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

  Nick Carraway

• “The exhilerating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”

• “On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages along the shore the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.”

• “Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it – I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. (1.17)”

• “How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.”

• “Don't forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings.”

• “I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous menacing road of a new decade.”

  Nick Carraway

• “He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.”

• “It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue and moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Valley of Ashes: The anithesis of life in East and West Egg, the Valley consists of smoky air, piles of ashes, railroad lines and a few scattered businesses; a buffer between the wealth of Nassau and Suffolk Counties and the densely populated Brooklyn and Queens areas located just across the East River from New York City. The eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleberg overlook the Valley from a large billboard, and these represent the eyes of God watching the American Dream disintegrate.
• Louisville, Kentucky: Situated on the Ohio River, Louisville is the largest city in Kentucky and the hometown of Daisy and Jordan. It is also where Daisy and Gatsby meet in 1917 when he is a soldier and she a debutante helping out with the Red Cross.
• New York City: Although as decadent, fast and urban in 1922 as it is in the modern context, New York City in Gatsby is a secondary setting. It is the place where businessmen meet and where Nick works. It's also where the rich go when bored to entertain themselves with shopping, affairs or simple hedonism. New York City also represents a version of the American Dream. It is a place of enormous possibility, wealth, hope – and corruption.
• West and East Egg (Long Island, NY): West and East Egg, on the northern shore of Long Island, are thought to be disguised versions of Great Neck and Manor Haven/Sands Point, both famous in the Jazz Age for wealth and luxury. Far enough outside the bustle of New York City, here the wealthy could have their space and waterfront views. By and by came the nouveau riche, which is quintessentially what Gatsby represents to Tom. So while Tom and Daisy live on the fashionable, old money east side of the Long Island Sound, Gatsby lives across the bay. West Egg, where Gatsby lives, is considered to be less fashionable than East Egg, with their ostentatious displays of wealth through their houses, cars and parties. However, those in East Egg are more conservative and tasteful with their money, and are considered classy and fashionable.
• Long Island

Organizations edit see section history

• The Yale Club: The Yale Club of New York City, commonly called the Yale Club, is a private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Its membership is restricted almost entirely to alumni and faculty of Yale University. With a clubhouse comprising 22 stories and a worldwide membership of over 11,000, it is the largest private clubhouse in the world

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Ectoplasm: A gel-like material which supposedly helps to summon spirits.
• Denizen: Inhabitant.
• Meritricious: Tawdry, gaudy.
• Bootlegger: Distiller and/or distributor of illegal alcoholic drinks
• Chartreuse: Green-coloured, strong French liqueur
• Duster: Long, buttonless overcoat worn when travelling in open cars
• Hash: Stew
• Hydroplane: Motorboat, usually for racing
• Mint Julep: Cocktail made with mint, bourbon, sugar and water
• Oculist: Optician
• Rotogravure: Printing system using cylindrical press
• Sauterne: Sweet white wine
• Teutonic: Characteristically German
• Somnambulatory: Of, pertaining to, or subject to somnambulation · Carried out while sleepwalking · Going through motions
• Gonnegtion: Mr. Meyer Wolfshiem's pronnunciation of "connection."
• Debauchee: A person who habitually indulges in debauchery or dissipation; a libertine.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• The Green Light: The green light symbolizes Gatsby's longing for Daisy.
• The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg: The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter 8, when he imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams.
• The Defunct Clock: The defunct clock is used as a metaphor for Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, it no longer functions, and belongs to the past. “Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place.”
• White: False purity
• Yellow: Death or corruption
• Green: Hope
• Gray: Loss of hope or dullness
• Blue: "The Dream", fantasy, illusion
• Gold: Wealth

Errata edit see section history

Dan Cody's yacht could not have been threatened by tides from Lake Superior.

There is mention of a news-stand on the lower level and the cold waiting room on the lower level of the Pennsylvania Station. There isn't any lower level at that station.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Frank Muller (Reader)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century (#2)
• BBC's Big Read (April 2003, #43)
• Time 100 All-Time Novels
• Waterstone's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century (#12)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3511.19G7
• Dewey: 813.52

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Deals with bootlegging. And explicit scenes/ languageMost suitable for ages 13 and up.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › United States › Classics › Fitzgerald, F. Scott
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( F ) › Fitzgerald, F. Scott
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Book and Film Review: That is, in his vision, not only the summation of Gatsby – standing there on the dock, staring out at the light, with nothing really there beyond the light but an empty dream – but America itself. As he so often puts it, it’s the shining city on the hill, but when you get there, there’s nothing there. It’s all there in Fitzgerald’s prose, both the dream itself: ”That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money – that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it . . . . High in a white palace, the king’s daughter, the golden girl . . . .” and the emptiness to be found in the heart of it: “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God – a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that – and he must be about his Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty.”
• Reason Magazine Book Review: Very few American novels have demonstrated the remarkable staying power of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Published in 1925, it remains a critical darling, a widely read popular novel, and the scourge of indifferent high school students who suffer through it as that most soul-killing of literary forms, “assigned reading.” Gatsby looms so large in the American imagination that it’s already been filmed four times (the first time in 1926, as a silent movie) and will hit theaters yet again in May, with an A-list cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire) and director (Baz Luhrmann). Surprisingly, the new film also boasts state-of-the-art 3D, as if the filmmakers are worried that the story alone—which includes sex, murder, and copious amounts of Prohibition-era booze—isn’t quite riveting enough to put asses in seats.

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Great Gatsby (1926) (IMDb): No prints of this film are known to survive.
• The Great Gatsby (1949) (IMDb): Starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Shelley Winters and Ruth Hussey.
• The Great Gatsby (1974) (IMDb): Staring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black
• The Great Gatsby (TV 2000) (IMDb): Starring Mira Sorvino, Toby Stephens, Paul Rudd and Martin Donovan.
• G (2002) (IMDb): Set in African-American society and starring Richard T. Jones, Blair Underwood and Chenoa Maxwell.
• The Great Gatsby (2013) (IMDb): Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history