Summary Of Great Gatsby Essay, Research Paper

The Great Gatsby

Plot Summary

A man named Nick Carraway moves from the Mid-West to come live in Long Island. He rents a house in West Egg Village. Next door lives a rich man, Mr. Gatsby, whom Nick has never met. Just across the bay, in East Egg, Tom and Daisy Buchanan live. Daisy is Nick s cousin. Through Daisy Nick meets Jordan Baker, a golf-pro when he has a relationship with.

Nick becomes intrigued by the lavish parties given by the very wealthy Mr. Gatsby. In time, the two meet and become close friends.

As the story progresses, Nick becomes intertwined in the world of the very rich. He also becomes aware of the mysterious circumstances surrounding Jay Gatsby.

He also finds out that Daisy had once been involved with Gatsby before she married Tom. Thought they were in love, Gatsby was hiding the fact that he was poor. He creates a different identity for himself to impress Daisy. He is not James Gatz anymore who comes from a poor family, but Jay Gatsby, educated at Oxford, a war hero, from a very prestigious background. He could not marry Daisy at the time because he didn t have the wealth Daisy was used to, but he had ambition. He left for a while and it was then she married Tom. Gatsby spends the next 5 years accumulating wealth from various sources and buys his mansion at West Egg to be close to Daisy again.

He uses Nick to help him get back together with Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby meet again and have an affair. When Tom gets wind of their relationship, an argument comes about. Gatsby thinks Daisy will leave Tom and that she never loved him. Daisy cannot make up her mind about what to do.

On the drive back from New York City after the argument with Tom, Daisy and Gatsby drove back together in Gatsby car. They drove together because Tom was going to secretly meet Myrtle Wilson by saying that he was dropping off a car with George Wilson. Daisy asked to drive Gatsby s car because she was upset after the argument and thought driving would sooth her.

In the meantime, George Wilson is arguing with Myrtle, because he gets word of her affair, although he doesn t know it is with his friend Tom. They argue, and she runs out into the road to get away from George. She is accidentally struck and killed coincidentally by Gatsby s car, driven by Daisy. Daisy s frightened and does not stop. Gatsby tells her he will take the blame.

Tom gets to the garage and sees what happened. Witnesses tell police that a yellow car struck Myrtle. Daisy does not tell Tom what happened.

George, crazy by the death of his wife, searches for the yellow car. Tom leads George to Gatsby s house, then takes Daisy away to Chicago.

George kills Gatsby and then himself. Because Jay is mixed up in some shady business dealings, no one wants to come to his funeral. Nick gets in touch with Gatsby s father and they are the only two that attend the funeral.

CHARACTERS

F. Scott Fitzgerald s characters come across as wealthy, shallow individuals but deep-down inside, they are complex and tortured.

Nick Carraway, who is the narrator, is the most stable and honest of all the characters. He is a regular guy thrown into a world of the rich. He is aware of the shallowness and dishonesty of the other characters. As he gets to know Gatsby, he admires his ambition and his ideals.

Jay Gatsby, born poor, as James Gatz, he decides early on in his life to lift himself out of poverty. He has the romantic idea of the American Dream , that a person form any background can achieve greatness. He changes his name, and set out to make his fortune, though some of his wealth comes by illegal means. He believes that he can be nothing without wealth and when he falls in love with Daisy, the first nice girl he s ever known, he lets her go because he feels he isn t rich enough at the time to give her the kind of life she is used to. He spends the rest of his life following his romantic ideal, but he is never happy. He buys his mansion, accumulates incredible wealth, throws lavish parties, but he remains isolated, unhappy, and unfulfilled.

Daisy is beautiful, charming, but very shallow. Though she loves Gatsby, she would never leave Tom because she is comfortable with the life and money that he provides for her. Even when she kills Myrtle, she has no problem with Gatsby taking the blame. And doesn t even tell Tom what has happened.

Tom is an arrogant, self-absorbed, conceited, nasty, prejudiced man. He believes that being wealthy makes you better and more powerful than everyone else. He has affairs with other women but does not think that this is wrong if he remains married to Daisy. He still loves Daisy in his own way though. When he finds out about Gatsby and Daisy s relationship, he set out to destroy him by exposing his criminal activity.

MINOR CHARACTERS

Jordan Baker is a friend of Daisy; she is a professional golfer. Nick has a relationship with her even thought he knows she s a liar and a gold-digger.

Myrtle Wilson is the wife of George Wilson, a car mechanic, she is having an affair with Tom.

George Wilson ends up killing Gatsby in the end.

PROTAGINIST & ANTAGINIST

The protagonist is Jay Gatsby. He is striving to make his life better. Although he achieves some of his goals, he remains unhappy and unfulfilled.

Jay Gatsby may also be his own antagonist. He is a tortured man who hangs on the past and his ideals that cannot be reached in the real world. Daisy and Tom may also be antagonists because they bring about his untimely death.

SETTING

The setting is Long Island in the 1920 s.

THEME

Fitzgerald s theme centers around the moral decay of society. His characters display traits like arrogance, and prejudice. They are oblivious to people s feelings; they are cold, shallow, and although wealthy, they are unfulfilled. I think he is saying that society perceives that wealth is power, but it leads to a decay or breakdown or morality and integrity.

TITLE

The character, Nick, gives us a clue to the title. Nick, throughout the story, speaks highly of Jay Gatsby. He admires him for his ambition and hard work to bring himself out of poverty. That s why he named the book, The Great Gatsby .

VERISIMLITUDE

This story is true-to-life. All around us today, we can see how having money can corrupt people. We also see celebrities and wealthy people who seem to have everything, yet they are unhappy, destroy their lives with drugs, and are so self-absorbed that they do not use their wealth and power to do good things or to help others.

OPINION

Overall, I think this book was a very good book. It had many messages in it. Many of which you had to read in-between the lines for, but I still enjoyed it. It had many aspects of society in it. So in closing I just want to say that it s an extremely enjoyable book and I recommend it to anyone to read. You will learn a lot. Thank you.

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