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The Great Gatsby is a story about the impossibility of recapturing the past and also the difficulty of altering one’s future. The protagonist of the novel is Jay Gatsby, who is the mysterious and wealthy neighbor of the narrator, Nick Carraway.
Mar 30, 2021 · How did this novel come to be so widely acclaimed and studied, and what does it all mean? Before we proceed to an analysis of Fitzgerald’s novel, here’s a quick summary of the plot. The Great Gatsby: plot summary. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, is a young man who has come to New York to work on the stock exchange.
Not only does this complete The Great Gatsby summary provide a detailed synopsis of the plot, but it'll also give you: capsule descriptions for the book's major characters, short explanations of most important themes, as well as links to in-depth articles about these and other topics.
The best study guide to The Great Gatsby on the planet, from the creators of SparkNotes. Get the summaries, analysis, and quotes you need.
- Nick Carraway
- Jay Gatsby
- Daisy Buchanan
- Tom Buchanan
- Jordan Baker
- Myrtle Wilson
- George Wilson
- Owl Eyes
- Klipspringer
- Meyer Wolfsheim
The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island tha...
The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on...
Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy deci...
Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no ...
Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth. Read an i...
Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire. Read an in-depth analysis of Myrtle Wilson.
Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women ...
The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion. Nick finds Owl Eyes looking through Gatsby’s library, astonished that the books are real. Read an in-depth analysis of Owl Eyes.
The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby’s mansion, taking advantage of his host’s money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he does call Nick about a pair of tennis shoes that he left at Gatsby’s mansion. Read an in-depth analysis of Klipspringer.
Gatsby’s friend, a prominent figure in organized crime. Before the events of the novel take place, Wolfsheim helped Gatsby to make his fortune bootlegging illegal liquor. His continued acquaintance with Gatsby suggests that Gatsby is still involved in illegal business. Read an in-depth analysis of Meyer Wolfsheim.
Read an analysis of The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a short novel, just nine chapters, each built around a party scene — though the final “party” is, of course, a funeral. The story itself is about a poor boy from a farming background who becomes fabulously wealthy.
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Key Facts about The Great Gatsby. Title: The Great Gatsby; When/where written: Paris and the US in 1924; Published: 1925; Literary Period: Modernism; Genre: Novel; Point-of-View: First-person; Setting: New York City in 1922; Climax: Gatsby and Tom fight over Daisy; Antagonist: Tom Buchanan, Greed
