The Great Gatsby Summary Guides: Chapter 1
Summary
The narrator of The Great Gatsby is a young man from Minnesota named Nick Carraway. He not
only narrates the story but casts himself as the book’s author. He begins by commenting on
himself, stating that he learned from his father to reserve judgment about other people, because if
he holds them up to his own moral standards, he will misunderstand them. He characterizes
himself as both highly moral and highly tolerant. He briefly mentions the hero of his story,
Gatsby, saying that Gatsby represented everything he scorns, but that he exempts Gatsby
completely from his usual judgments. Gatsby’s personality was nothing short of “gorgeous.”
In the summer of 1922, Nick writes, he had just arrived in New York, where he moved to work
in the bond business, and rented a house on a part of Long Island called West Egg. Unlike the
conservative, aristocratic East Egg, West Egg is home to the “new rich,” those who, having made
their fortunes recently, have neither the social connections nor the refinement to move among the
East Egg set. West Egg is characterized by lavish displays of wealth and garish poor taste. Nick’s
comparatively modest West Egg house is next door to Gatsby’s mansion, a sprawling Gothic
monstrosity.
Nick is unlike his West Egg neighbors; whereas they lack social connections and aristocratic
pedigrees, Nick graduated from Yale and has many connections on East Egg. One night, he
drives out to East Egg to have dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, a
former member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Tom, a powerful figure dressed in riding clothes,
greets Nick on the porch. Inside, Daisy lounges on a couch with her friend Jordan Baker, a
competitive golfer who yawns as though bored by her surroundings.
Tom tries to interest the others in a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by a man
named Goddard. The book espouses racist, white-supremacist attitudes that Tom seems to find
convincing. Daisy teases Tom about the book but is interrupted when Tom leaves the room to
take a phone call. Daisy follows him hurriedly, and Jordan tells Nick that the call is from Tom’s
lover in New York.
After an awkward dinner, the party breaks up. Jordan wants to go to bed because she has a golf
tournament the next day. As Nick leaves, Tom and Daisy hint that they would like for him to
take a romantic interest in Jordan.
When Nick arrives home, he sees Gatsby for the first time, a handsome young man standing on
the lawn with his arms reaching out toward the dark water. Nick looks out at the water, but all he
can see is a distant green light that might mark the end of a dock.
Analysis
Nick Carraway’s perceptions and attitudes regarding the events and characters of the novel are
central to The Great Gatsby. Writing the novel is Nick’s way of grappling with the meaning of a
story in which he played a part. The first pages of Chapter 1 establish certain contradictions in
Nick’s point of view. Although he describes himself as tolerant and nonjudgmental, he also
views himself as morally privileged, having a better sense of “decencies” than most other people.
While Nick has a strong negative reaction to his experiences in New York and eventually returns
to the Midwest in search of a less morally ambiguous environment, even during his initial phase
of disgust, Gatsby stands out for him as an exception. Nick admires Gatsby highly, despite the
fact that Gatsby represents everything Nick scorns about New York. Gatsby clearly poses a
challenge to Nick’s customary ways of thinking about the world, and Nick’s struggle to come to
terms with that challenge inflects everything in the novel.
In the world of East Egg, alluring appearances serve to cover unattractive realities. The marriage
of Tom and Daisy Buchanan seems menaced by a quiet desperation beneath its pleasant surface.
Unlike Nick, Tom is arrogant and dishonest, advancing racist arguments at dinner and carrying
on relatively public love affairs. Daisy, on the other hand, tries hard to be shallow, even going so
far as to say she hopes her baby daughter will turn out to be a fool, because women live best as
beautiful fools. Jordan Baker furthers the sense of sophisticated fatigue hanging over East Egg:
her cynicism, boredom, and dishonesty are at sharp odds with her wealth and beauty. As with the
Buchanans’ marriage, Jordan’s surface glamour covers up an inner emptiness.
Gatsby stands in stark contrast to the denizens of East Egg. Though Nick does not yet know the
green light’s origin, nor what it represents for Gatsby, the inner yearning visible in Gatsby’s
posture and his emotional surrender to it make him seem almost the opposite of the sarcastic Ivy
League set at the Buchanans’. Gatsby is a mysterious figure for Nick, since Nick knows neither
his motives, nor the source of his wealth, nor his history, and the object of his yearning remains
as remote and nebulous as the green light toward which he reaches.
The relationship between geography and social values is an important motif in The Great
Gatsby. Each setting in the novel corresponds to a particular thematic idea or character type. This
first chapter introduces two of the most important locales, East Egg and West Egg. Though each
is home to fabulous wealth, and though they are separated only by a small expanse of water, the
two regions are nearly opposite in the values they endorse. East Egg represents breeding, taste,
aristocracy, and leisure, while West Egg represents ostentation, garishness, and the flashy
manners of the new rich. East Egg is associated with the Buchanans and the monotony of their
inherited social position, while West Egg is associated with Gatsby’s gaudy mansion and the
inner drive behind his self-made fortune. The unworkable intersection of the two Eggs in the
romance between Gatsby and Daisy will serve as the fault line of catastrophe.
THE GREAT GATSBY: Study Questions
1. We see all the action of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of one character whose
narration seems to be shaped by his own values and temperament. What is Nick Carraway like,
what does he value, and how do his character and his values matter to our understanding of the
action of the novel?
2. Early in the novel, Nick says of Gatsby that he “turned out all right at the end” (p.2) Later,
however, after he tells Gatsby “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (154) he
abruptly calls this “the only compliment I ever gave him because I disapproved of him from
beginning to end.” What does this curiously ambivalent admiration for Gatsby tell us about Nick,
and especially about his relation to Gatsby’s “incorruptible dream?”
3. From his first appearance, Tom Buchanan is a mouthpiece of racism. For instance, he sees
himself as one of the “Nordics” who “make civilization;” and who must prevent “these other
races” from having “control of things” [p.13]. Elsewhere, he complains of the lack of “selfcontrol” of people who “begin by sneering at family life and family institutions,” and threaten to
“throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white” [130]. How does
Tom’s expression of such attitudes illuminate his character, his relations with Daisy, and his
sense of his place in the world?
4. How is Wolfsheim, along with the anti-Semitism informing his characterization, important to
shaping the conflicts of the novel?
5. One of the concluding images of The Great Gatsby is Nick’s description of “the old island
here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes---a fresh, green breast of the new world.” (180).
This imagery reminds us of the predominance in the novel of fantasies insistently associated with
men. What is the place for Daisy, and for the novel’s female characters generally, in such
fantasies? Are the dreams of the women in the novel consistent with those fantasies, or do we
encounter any points of resistance?
6. The introduction of Myrtle and George Wilson underscores the importance of social class in
the novel. How does their presence sharpen Fitzgerald’s characterization of the rich, and what
might the resulting contrasts suggest about the role of class in shaping social experience in The
Great Gatsby?
7. According to one of the characters in Azar Nafisi’s contemporary memoir, Reading Lolita in
Tehran,, the only “sympathetic“ person in the novel is “the cuckolded husband, Mr. Wilson.”
What aspects of The Great Gatsby might be offered as grounds for such a claim, and is the claim
ultimately convincing?
8. At the end of Chapter Five, Nick makes much of the power of Daisy’s voice over Gatsby: “I
think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be overdreamed—that voice was a deathless song” (p.96). Later on, Gatsby observes that “Her voice is
full of money,” and Nick develops the point: “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.” Is it possible for characters in Gatsby’s world to disentangle different kinds
of value: In particular, do the social conventions and self-understandings of the main characters
allow them to disentangle the material value associated with economic wealth, the value
attributed to a human object of desire, the aesthetic value of a beautiful object, and the moral
values by which one assesses a person’s character? Why, if it all, does this matter?
9. An intriguing exchange between Nick and Gatsby takes place near the end of Chapter Six: “I
wouldn’t ask too much of her,” Nick says “You can’t repeat the past.” “Can’t repeat the past?”
Gatsby cries out. “Why of course you can!” (p. 110). How does the past impinge upon the
present in the lives of both Nick and Gatsby? Should we see Gatsby as eccentric in his view that
one can not merely repeat, but change, the past by starting over?
10. At Gatsby’s funeral, Nick remembers “without resentment, that Daisy hadn’t sent a message
or a flower” [174]. Should Nick’s attitude surprise us, and how might it illuminate the world that
Gatsby, Nick, and Daisy inhabited, and the value of Gatsby’s “incorruptible dream” (154)?
Name: _________________________________
The Great Gatsby: Reading and Discussion Questions
Reading questions will be due at the end of each week. We will often use these questions as
prompts for our class conversations.
Chapter 1
1. Notice how many times Fitzgerald uses the words hope, or dream. Why does he do this?
2. Nick starts the novel by relaying his father's advice "Whenever you feel like criticizing
anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've
had." List Nick's advantages. Does he reserve judgement in the novel?
3. Pay attention to time. What is the day and year during the first scene at Daisy's house?
4. Describe Nick. What facts do you know about him, and what do you infer about him? What
kind of a narrator do you think he will be?
5. What image does the author use to describe Jordan Baker? What does it mean?
6. How does Nick react to Jordan?
7. What does Tom's behavior reveal about his character?
Chapter 2
1. Describe the "valley of ashes." What does it look like and what does it represent?
2. Describe Mr. Wilson and Myrtle. Do they seem to fit into the setting?
3. What more have you learned about Nick in this chapter? Is he similar or different than the
people he spends his time with?
4. Describe the violent act Tom comitted against Myrtle. What does this reveal about him?
Chapter 3
1. Pay attention to Nick's judgements. What do they reveal about his character that he does this
(especially in relation to his opening comments)?
2. Describe Gatsby the first time Nick sees him.
3. What rumors have been told about Gatsby? Why does Fitzgerald reveal rumors rather than
fact?
4. What does Nick think of Gatsby after meeting him?
5. How is Gatsby different from his guests?
6. Why does Nick choose to share his thoughts and feelings with Jordan?
7. Nick thinks he's one of the few honest people he knows, why? Do you think he is honest?
Chapter 4
1. List all of the rumors told about Gatsby.
2. Why does Fitzgerald list all of Gatsby's party guests?
3. Why does Gatsby tell Nick about his life? Do you believe Gatsby? Does Nick?
4. What role does Meyer Wolfsheim play in the novel? Why is there so much focus on his nose
and what does this tell you about Fitzgerald's politics?
5. What does Jordan's story of Daisy's marriage reveal about Daisy?
6. Why did Gatsby want Daisy to see his house?
7. Nick says, "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." What does Nick
mean? How does each character in the novel fit into this schema?
Chapter 5
1. Why does Gatsby deliver so many goods and services to Nick's house?
2. Describe the effect of rain on the plot.
3. Why does Gatsby offer Nick work? How does Nick feel about this?
4. Explain the significance of the green light.
5. Why does Gatsby get so many phone calls? What does this say about him?
Chapter 6
1. How truthful was Gatsby when he relayed the story of his life to Nick? Why does Fitzgerald
tell the story of Jay Gatz now?
2. Describe the meeting of Tom and Gatsby. What does this meeting reveal about them?
3. Why did Daisy and Tom find Gatsby's party loathsome?
4. How did Gatsby measure the success of his party?
5. When Nick told Gatsby that "you can't repeat the past", Gatsby replied, "Why of course you
can!" Do you agree with Nick or Gatsby?
Chapter 7
1. Who is Trimachio? Explain how this describes Gatsby.
2. Describe Daisy and Gatsby's new relationship.
3. Compare George Wilson and Tom. What did each man learn about his wife and how did they
each react?
4. If Daisy says she's never loved Tom, is there someone whom she thinks she loves?
5. Describe the fight between Gatsby and Tom. What do these men think of each other? How
are they similar and how are they different?
6. What was significant about Nick's 30th birthday?
7. What do you think Tom and Daisy were saying to each other in the kitchen? Do you think
that Tom knew Daisy was driving the "death car"? Why, why not?
8. At this point, how would you end the novel?
Chapter 8
1. How does Fitzgerald achieve a melancholic mood in the beginning of this chapter?
2. How are seasons used in constructing this novel?
3. Who is Dan Cody and what is his significance in Gatsby's life?
4. How does Nick's statement "You're worth the whole bunch put together" show a change in
Nick from the beginning of the novel?
5. How does T. J. Eckleberg affect Mr. Wilson?
Chapter 9
1. Why did Nick take care of Gatsby's funeral?
2. How was Jay Gatz's childhood schedule consistent with the adult Gatsby's behavior?
3. Who attended Gatsby's funeral? How and why is this significant?
4. What is the purpose of Nick's last meeting with Jordan?
5. Why does Nick call Tom and Daisy "careless people"?
Name: ________________________________
The Great Gatsby: Close Reading Analysis
Periodically, after reading in class, we will take time to closely read and analyze a section of writing.
Today, we will answer these questions in small groups and discuss as a class.
Setting
and Mood
1. What words does Fitzgerald use to help the reader visualize the setting? Does the setting
evoke a special mood or atmosphere? If so, is the mood or atmosphere the same for both
excerpts?
Character
2. What evidence of motivation does Fitzgerald use to explain why the characters behave as they
do? Specify whether the evidence is direct or indirect characterization.
Voice and
Point of
View
3. What can we deduce or learn about our narrator from this chapter? Justify your answer.
Diction
and Tone
4. What tone does Fitzgerald create in his writing? Locate specific words or phrases that
establish the tone of moments in this chapter.
Symbolism
5. Discuss the symbolism (allegory, allusion, metaphor, symbols) in these passages. What does
Fitzgerald intend to convey with these symbols?






Society and Class
Love
Visions of America
Isolation
Mortality
Lies and Deceit
Themes
6. Either by yourself, or with a small group of peers, choose a
single theme which you will follow throughout the book. What
did you learn about this theme today?
Author’s
Message
7. Once we finish reading The Great Gatsby, you will be asked to write a paper that addresses
the question: ‘What is Fitzgerald’s critique of the American Dream in the 1920s?’ After
completing today’s reading, how might you answer this question? What are allegorical or moral
lessons that emerged today?