Name:____________________________________________________ Period:_________ Due Date:__________________________
The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 Reading Guide
CHAPTER 1:
1. Read the quote on the title page of the novel. Summarize what you think this quote means. Why do you think that quote is on the
title page? What is the purpose of that quote?
2. Who is the Narrator of this novel?
3. What is the advice his father gives him?
4. What character trait does the narrator say he possesses?
5. “Reserving judgment is a matter of ______________________
________________” (2).
6. Why does Nick say he left the East?
7. Who is the only person “exempt from [his] reaction” (2) to the East?
8. What business gave the Carraway family their money?
9. “Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of
_____________________________” (3). (This gives you the year in which this novel is set.)
10. West Egg represents ____________________________ and East Egg represents ______________________________.
11. After all the background information, the story Nick is going to tell during this novel begins when he does what one evening?
12. When readers first meet Tom, what diction is used to describe him? What does this suggest about his characterization?
13. “Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains
and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor” (8). What does this image convey about Tom’s personality?
14. “I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only a way to make people lean toward her” (9). What can you infer about Daisy based
on this quote?
15. What do you think is the impression of the old money lifestyle tries Fitzgerald portray in this chapter?
16. What character traits are revealed about Tom Buchanan’s personality in this chapter?
17. Who is the “fifth guest” at the Buchanan’s dinner party? What effect does this guest have one the other guests or the dinner?
18. What was Daisy’s reaction when she was told her daughter was a girl?
19. What did she wish her daughter would be? Explain why?
20. After Daisy confides in Nick about her life Nick says, “I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as
though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributary emotion from me” (17). What does Nick mean by this
statement? What does this statement show about Daisy?
21. Why did Nick say he could not get engaged?
22. After spending the evening at the Buchanan’s, what is Nick’s “judgement” of both Daisy and Tom?
23. Describe Gatsby’s actions at the end of Chapter 1. Explain the symbolic meaning behind his actions.