Chapter 4
The chapter begins on a Sunday with guests returning to Gatsby’s party. There is some
discordance with partying on a Sunday and the church bells ringing in the villages. It’s as if
New Yorkers will attend a ‘service’ at Gatsby’s mansion. As seen in chapter 2 with the
dispassionate eyes of Dr T.J. Eckleburg looking gloomily over humanity, religion plays a
minor or absent role in the lives of the New Yorkers in the 1920s.
The narrative of this chapter is three diary type entries that Nick has written down. The first is
the satirically told list of people at Gatsby’s parties. The second is an account from sometime
late in July when Gatsby, on their way to lunch, tells Nick a fictitious as well as true account
of his life.p62. The third follows this late July luncheon and is what happened at his meeting
with Jordan Baker at the Plaza Hotel where she tells him about Gatsby and Daisy in 1917
First: Nick writes down a list of people who attended the parties and the names are
preposterous. It is a parody, a mockery of the odd names Americans seem to have such:
Leeches, Blackbuck, are suggestive of dishonest money; Whitebait and Hammerhead and
Ferret are sheer comedy. The satire continues with the gambling group at Gatsby’s parties
and James B. (‘Rot-Gut’) Ferret is ‘cleaned out, meaning that “Associated Traction would
have to fluctuate profitability next day”, ie his business will cover the debt, illegally of
course...and even the business has a weird name.
Second: On their way to lunch Gatsby reveals his past to Nick. He says he has come from a
wealthy family in the Middle West and that like all his ancestors was educated at Oxford, but
Nick suspects this is not true: “ he hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford’...and with this
doubt his whole statement fell to pieces” p64 When Nick asks him what part of the Middle
West, Gatsby replies incorrectly California which is of course not Middle West at all. Gatsby
is vague about his birthplace because he is inventing his life and upbringing. He swells it out
with his travelling life among the rich in the capitals of Europe “trying to forget something
very sad that had happened to me long ago”. (This would be how Dan Cody died and Gatsby
hade been cheated out of an inheritance chapter 6 p97). He adds in some possibly true details
of his life such as his courageous war acts and the medal from Montenegro p65, along with a
picture of him at Oxford. This mixture of the true and the fictitious leaves Nick wonderuing if
it could all be true.p65. In asking Nick a favour which Jordan will tell him abou,t he says that
his life has been lonely and he is aware of the rumours: “I didn’t want you to think I was just
some nobody” p66 (and this echoes the later accusation of Tom “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr
Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife”p123) Tis section ends with Gatsby being pulled over for
speeding, but he shows the policeman a ‘card’ from the mayor and the policeman backs off. It
is clear that Gatsby has connections and is not troubled by corruption at all.
At their lunch, this absence of morality and being comfortable with corruption is confirmed.
On meeting Meyer Wolfsheim, Nick learns that Wolfsheim is proud of his gangster
associations and even speaks nostalgically of the night that his friend Rosy Rosenthal was
gunned down. Gatsby met Wolfsheim after the war in 1919 and in that year Wolfsheim fixed
the World’s Series and made a fortune with a fixed bet that the Chicago White Sox would
lose. When Nick asks Gatsby why he isn’t in gaol, Gatsby replies: “They can’t get him, old
sport. He’s a smart man.” This is said admiringly. (Later we learn how Wolfsheim is the reason Gatsby is
fabulously wealthy. This is seen in through Tom in chapter 7 p127 128, and through Wolfsheim chapter 9 p162, where it’s
This section of Nick’s account
ends with a coincidence. Tom happens to be in the same restaurant and Gatsby is
embarrassed: “ a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby’s face.”p73
(later we know why, as Gatsby’s previous five years have all been to do with attracting Daisy to him.” ) Mysteriousl
Gatsby disappears quickly after Nick and Tom briefly turn away to talk. Yet a further
instance of the lone, mysterious figure of Gatsby.
also possible he might have had something to do with the 1919 World’s series .)
Third: This section of chapter 4 concludes it. Jordan and Nick are at the Plaza hotel in the
afternoon of the same day. Jordan reveals all about Gatsby and Daisy and their romance in
1917 before he went to serve in the war. Clearly daisy’s parents had no time for Gatsby as
seen in their refusal to let Daisy go to see him off p73. Yet she soon forgot this
disappointment and she soon put Gatsby out of her mind: “ By the next autumn she was gay
again, gay as ever.” She married Tom Buchanan. On the night before her wedding she got the
letter from Gatsby saying (we learn later he is returning and will marry her). This upset daisy
again, but not for long as Tom showed her the ‘rich life’...yet at their hotel in Santa Barbara
at the height of Daisy’s love for Tom, he has a relationship with their chambermaidp75.
P75 gives us a timeframe for all the events so far. “About six weeks ago she heard the name
Gatsby for the first time in years”. The chapter concludes with Nick realising there was no
coincidence that Gatsby lived near the Buchanans. He had deliberately bought a mansion
opposite their bay where he could see the green light on their dock, where he could throw
huge parties in the hopoe that Daisy might drop by one night. The song about the Sheik of
Araby p76 symbolises the way Gatsby has ‘crept’ into the East and West Egg area to seek out
Daisy and ‘steal her away’ from Tom. Jordan also sees nothing wrong with Daisy having an
affair: “Daisy ought to have something in her life.”p77
Nick seems confused by all the ‘goings-on’: “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the
busy, and the tired” All life is activity with winners and losers, and there is little need for
morality or religion or socially correct behaviour.
Nick and Jordan seem then to drift into a relationship, even though Nick still needs to sort out
his engagement to a girl back in Chicago see p78