The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner and war veteran, moves to West Egg in the spring of 1922 to work in the bond business. His modest house stands beside the mansion of a man named Gatsby. Across the bay in East Egg, Nick visits his cousin Daisy Buchanan, her wealthy husband Tom, and their guest Jordan Baker. During dinner, Tom promotes racist ideas and repeated telephone calls expose the fact that he has a woman in New York. Daisy privately tells Nick about her unhappiness and cynicism, while Jordan identifies Tom's infidelity more directly. After returning home, Nick sees Gatsby for the first time as a solitary figure reaching toward a distant green light across the water.

Tom takes Nick from the train in the valley of ashes to George Wilson's garage, where Nick meets George and Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is Tom's mistress. Tom arranges for Myrtle to follow them to New York, and they gather at the Manhattan apartment Tom keeps for the affair with Myrtle's sister Catherine and the McKees. The group drinks heavily while Myrtle talks about her marriage and Catherine makes claims about why Tom and Daisy remain married. When Myrtle repeatedly says Daisy's name during an argument, Tom strikes her and breaks her nose. Nick leaves later with Mr. McKee, his memory of the drunken night fragmentary.

Nick receives a formal invitation to one of Gatsby's enormous weekend parties, where most guests arrive without invitations and trade rumors about their host. Nick spends time with Jordan Baker and meets a drunken man with owl-eyed spectacles who is astonished that Gatsby's library contains real books. Nick then speaks at length with an unfamiliar man before learning that the man is Gatsby himself. Gatsby remains unusually sober and controlled amid the revelry and later asks to speak privately with Jordan. Afterward Jordan says Gatsby has told her something remarkable but that she has promised not to reveal it. As the party disperses, Nick finds a coupé in a ditch with one wheel torn off; Owl Eyes says he was not driving, and the other man who emerges from the car is too drunk to understand what has happened. Nick also recounts his ordinary working life in New York and his growing involvement with Jordan, while recalling evidence that she can be dishonest. During a drive, Jordan says other drivers will keep out of her way; Nick warns that a bad driver is safe only until meeting another bad driver.

After listing many of the people who attend Gatsby's parties, Nick rides to New York with Gatsby. Gatsby gives Nick an elaborate account of his wealthy family, Oxford education, travels, and wartime service, and produces a medal and an Oxford photograph when Nick doubts him. At lunch Gatsby introduces Meyer Wolfshiem, a gambler whom Gatsby says fixed the 1919 World Series. Nick then introduces Gatsby to Tom Buchanan; Gatsby appears embarrassed and disappears while Nick is speaking with Tom. Later Jordan recounts seeing Daisy with Gatsby in Louisville in 1917. She also recalls later rumors that Daisy tried to go to New York to say goodbye to a soldier who was going overseas, and describes Daisy becoming drunk and distraught over a letter on the eve of her wedding to Tom, trying to return Tom's pearls, then marrying him the next day. Jordan says that after the honeymoon Daisy appeared intensely attached to Tom; a week after Jordan left Santa Barbara, Tom crashed his car while accompanied by a hotel chambermaid, who broke her arm. She then explains that Daisy recently recognized Gatsby's name, that Gatsby bought his West Egg house so Daisy would be across the bay, and that Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy to tea without telling her Gatsby will be there.

After Nick agrees to invite Daisy to tea, Gatsby offers him a vague, confidential money-making opportunity; Nick refuses because he understands it as payment for the favor. Gatsby then makes elaborate preparations at Nick's small house. The reunion begins awkwardly, but after Nick leaves them alone briefly, Gatsby and Daisy become absorbed in each other. Gatsby takes them to his mansion and displays his rooms and possessions. He says it took him three years to earn the money that bought the house, then says he lost most of an inheritance and had previously been in the drug and oil businesses. Daisy cries while handling his shirts. They encounter Gatsby's boarder, Ewing Klipspringer, whom Gatsby later summons to play the piano. Gatsby points out that Daisy's house is visible across the bay and recalls the green light at the end of her dock. Nick thinks the light may have lost some of its former significance for Gatsby now that Daisy is physically present. As Gatsby and Daisy draw closer, Nick leaves them together.

Nick reveals the history behind Gatsby's invented identity. Born James Gatz to unsuccessful farm people in North Dakota, he adopts the name Jay Gatsby at seventeen when he rows out to warn the wealthy Dan Cody that wind may endanger Cody's yacht on Lake Superior. Gatsby then spends five years with Cody in several roles; Cody leaves him a twenty-five-thousand-dollar legacy, but Gatsby never receives it because of a legal device that leaves the remaining money to Ella Kaye. Weeks after Gatsby's reunion with Daisy, Tom visits Gatsby with the Sloanes. Gatsby fails to recognize that the woman's dinner invitation is not sincere, and the riding party leaves while he is preparing to follow them. Tom and Daisy later attend one of Gatsby's parties. Daisy dislikes the gathering, while Tom becomes suspicious of Gatsby. Afterward Gatsby is distressed that Daisy did not enjoy herself and insists that he wants her to tell Tom she never loved him so that he and Daisy can recover their earlier relationship. Nick warns him that the past cannot simply be repeated, but Gatsby rejects the warning.

Gatsby stops holding parties and replaces his servants because Daisy has been visiting him. At a brutally hot lunch at the Buchanans' house, Daisy kisses Gatsby and tells him she loves him while Tom is out of the room, and Gatsby meets Daisy's young daughter, Pammy. The group drives to New York in two cars. Tom, Nick, and Jordan stop at George Wilson's garage in Gatsby's yellow car. Wilson has discovered that Myrtle has some sort of life apart from him and tells Tom that he intends to take her west, while Myrtle sees Jordan and mistakes her for Tom's wife. At the Plaza Hotel, Gatsby explains that his Oxford attendance lasted five months through a post-armistice opportunity for officers. He tells Tom that Daisy never loved him, but Daisy ultimately admits that she once loved Tom as well as Gatsby. Tom then accuses Gatsby and Wolfshiem of illegal liquor sales and other criminal activity, and Daisy retreats from Gatsby. Tom sends Daisy and Gatsby home together in Gatsby's car. Later, Myrtle runs into the road and is struck and killed by a car traveling from New York. At the garage Tom tells Wilson only that the yellow car he had driven earlier was not his and that he has not seen it all afternoon. Back at the Buchanan house, Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy was driving when Myrtle was killed and that he intends to say he was driving. Nick then sees Tom and Daisy sitting together with an air of intimacy while Gatsby waits outside to protect Daisy from a danger Nick no longer expects.

After keeping watch outside the Buchanan house through the night, Gatsby tells Nick more about his relationship with Daisy. He explains that he had let Daisy believe he came from circumstances comparable to hers, that they fell in love before he went overseas, and that after the war he was sent to Oxford while Daisy's desire for an immediate, settled life eventually led her to Tom. Nick urges Gatsby to leave because his car will likely be traced, but Gatsby refuses to go before learning what Daisy will do. Before leaving for work, Nick tells Gatsby that he is worth the rest of the group put together. At work, Nick has a strained telephone conversation with Jordan after she leaves Daisy's house; they both say they want to see each other, but Nick refuses to meet that afternoon and the call ends abruptly. The narrative then returns to George Wilson after Myrtle's death. Wilson tells Michaelis that he believes the man in the yellow car murdered Myrtle and says he has a way to learn who owns it. After Wilson disappears, his movements can be traced only part of the way; the police later suppose he spent missing hours asking about the yellow car, but no garage witness comes forward and the source does not establish how he learned Gatsby's name. Wilson reaches West Egg and asks the way to Gatsby's house. Gatsby, still waiting for a telephone call, goes to his pool. No telephone message arrives; his chauffeur later hears shots, and Nick and Gatsby's servants find Gatsby dead in the pool and Wilson's body in the grass nearby.

After Gatsby's death, Catherine tells the coroner that Myrtle never knew Gatsby and had never been unfaithful to Wilson, helping leave the official case framed around Wilson as deranged by grief. Nick finds himself responsible for the practical aftermath because almost no one else shows sustained interest. Daisy and Tom have already left without an address, Wolfshiem refuses to become involved, and Klipspringer calls only about shoes he left behind. Gatsby's father, Henry C. Gatz, arrives from Minnesota, grieves for his son, and proudly shows Nick a childhood schedule and list of resolutions that testify to Gatsby's early ambition. At the sparsely attended funeral, Owl Eyes is the only former party guest who appears. Nick decides to return to the Midwest. In a final meeting with Jordan, she says Nick had already thrown her over by telephone; they part after revisiting their earlier conversation about careless drivers. Later, Tom admits that Wilson came to the Buchanan house and that Tom told him who owned the yellow car; Tom still believes Gatsby himself killed Myrtle. Nick condemns Tom and Daisy's carelessness but eventually shakes Tom's hand. Before leaving West Egg, Nick returns to Gatsby's empty property and reflects on Gatsby's green light, his dream, and the persistent human effort to move toward a future while being drawn back into the past.