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What happens in Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby?
While driving Nick into the city for lunch, Gatsby relates to Nick a series of stories about his life and accomplishments that Nick finds apocryphal and unrealistic. At lunch, Nick meets a shady associate of Gatsby’s named Meyer Wolfsheim, which leads him to believe that Gatsby acquired his wealth through criminal means. After lunch, Nick meets with Jordan who tells him about Gatsby and Daisy’s previous relationship, and Nick agrees to set up a tea date with Daisy where Gatsby will attend without Daisy’s knowledge.
Read more about Chapter 4 with our 3-minute Summary & Analysis
Are any important characters introduced in Chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby?
Chapter 4 introduces, Meyer Wolfsheim, who is less important for anything he does in the novel as he is for what he represents (including his criminal connections and his Jewish heritage) and how that reflects on Gatsby, as well as on the 1920s in general.
Read more about Meyer Wolfsheim in our 2-minute Character Analysis
Why does Gatsby arrange for Nick to meet with Jordan in Chapter 4?
The meeting between Nick and Jordan in Chapter 4 is part of an elaborate long-term plan to reconnect with Daisy that Gatsby initiated before Daisy moved to East Egg.
Read more about Nick’s arranged meeting with Jordan (30-second read)
To what literary Genre does The Great Gatsby belong?
The Great Gatsby has been described as belonging to several genres including tragedy, modernism, social satire, and realism. Fitzgerald skillfully intermixed these genres to tell his story, as you can read about in the discussion at the link below:
Read explanations of the various genres employed in The Great Gatsby (3-minute read)
Many critics have focused in particular on how The Great Gatsby blends the symbolism and figurative language of modernism with the social and psychological believability of realism. Modernism was a popular literary and artistic movement at the time the novel was written that was a reaction against the romanticism and sentimentality of novels and other art forms prior to World War I. An example of the realism that Fitzgerald employed in the novel is the character of Meyer Wolfsheim, who is introduced in Chapter 4. Wolfsheim was based on a real-life crime boss in New York in the 1920s named Arnold Rothstein. This is an example of Fitzgerald’s use of realism—in setting, detail, and social commentary—to portray New York City and Long Island as they actually were when he wrote The Great Gatsby.
