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.
