The Great Gatsby
CHAPTER I: Nick’s attitudes and perceptions of the world
This first chapter introduces two of the most important locales, East Egg and West Egg. Though each is home to fabulous wealth, and though they are separated only by a small expanse of water, the two regions are nearly opposite in the values they endorse. East Egg represents breeding, taste, aristocracy, and leisure, while West Egg represents ostentation, garishness, and the flashy manners of the new rich. East Egg is associated with the Buchanans and the monotony of their inherited social position, while West Egg is associated with Gatsby’s mansion and the inner drive behind his self-made fortune. The unworkable intersection of the two Eggs in the romance between Gatsby and Daisy will serve as the fault line of catastrophe.
In the chapter, we are introduced to 3 main characters: Nick, the principal character, Daisy, his cousin, and Tom, Daisy’s husband.
Nick Carraway describes himself as tolerant and nonjudgmental, he also views himself as morally privileged, having a better sense of “decencies” than most other people. While Nick has a strong negative reaction to his experiences in New York and eventually returns to the Midwest in search of a less morally ambiguous environment, even during his initial phase of disgust, Gatsby stands out for him as an exception. Nick admires Gatsby highly, despite the fact that Gatsby represents everything Nick scorns about New York.
The Essay on The Great Gatsby Nick Analysis
The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of Jay Gatsby, as Nick Carraway perceives him. Nick has a special place in this story. He is not just one character among several; it is through his eyes and ears that the story takes place. In this novel, Nick goes to some length to establish his credibility in telling the story about this "great" man called Gatsby. For example, He ...
Unlike Nick, Tom is arrogant and dishonest, advancing racist arguments at dinner and carrying on relatively public love affairs. Daisy, on the other hand, tries hard to be shallow, even going so far as to say she hopes her baby daughter will turn out to be a fool, because women live best as beautiful fools. Jordan Baker furthers the sense of sophisticated fatigue hanging over East Egg: her cynicism, boredom, and dishonesty are at sharp odds with her wealth and beauty.
The main theme in this chapter is the relationship between geography and social values. In fact, 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.
CHAPTER II: Among the Valley of Ashes
The valley of ashes is a picture of absolute desolation and poverty. It lacks a glamorous surface and lies fallow and gray halfway between West Egg and New York. The valley of ashes symbolizes the moral decay hidden by the beautiful facades of the Eggs, and suggests that beneath the ornamentation of West Egg and the mannered charm of East Egg lies the same ugliness as in the valley. The valley is created by industrial dumping and is therefore a by-product of capitalism. It is the home to the only poor characters in the novel.
The party underlines the aspect of each character. Nick’s reserved nature and indecisiveness show in the fact that though he feels morally repelled by the vulgarity of the party, he is too fascinated by it to leave. The party also underlines Tom’s hypocrisy and lack of restraint: he feels no guilt for betraying Daisy with Myrtle, but he feels compelled to keep Myrtle in her place. Tom is shown as a boorish bully who uses his social status and physical strength to dominate those around him. He taunts Wilson while having an affair with his wife, experiences no guilt for his immoral behavior, and does not hesitate to lash out violently in order to preserve his authority over Myrtle. Wilson stands in contrast, a handsome and morally upright man who doesn’t have money, privilege, and vitality.
The main theme is the mystery and excitement built around Gatsby, who still hasn’t appeared. Here, Gatsby emerges as a mysterious subject of gossip. He is extremely well known, but no one seems to have any verifiable information about him. The ridiculous rumor Catherine spreads shows the public’s curiosity about him, rendering him more intriguing to the other characters.
The Term Paper on The Great Gatsby – Reasons To Become Rich
... separation of East and West Egg constitutes not only a physical separation but a distinction by class. Although Gatsby managed to become as rich as ... young years. He succeeds in the end and Daisy and Nick visit Gatsby´s mansion. This scene is significant to show ... merits if Daisy isn´t a part of it. Nick explains that Gatsby “re-valued everything in his house according to the ...
CHAPTER III: Gatsby’s showy and rich world
Gatsby’s party is almost unbelievably luxurious: guests marvel over his Rolls-Royce, his swimming pool, his beach, crates of fresh oranges and lemons, buffet tents in the gardens overflowing with a feast, and a live orchestra playing under the stars. Liquor flows freely, and the crowd grows rowdier and louder as more and more guests get drunk.
Gatsby’s party brings 1920s wealth and glamour into the main focus, showing the upper class at its most luxurious side. The rich, both from East Egg and West Egg, dance without restraint. As the differences between East Egg and West Egg evidences, the reader is emerged in the social hierarchy and mood of America in the 1920s, when a large group of industrialists, speculators, and businessmen with brand-new fortunes joined the old, aristocratic families at the top of the economic ladder. The “new rich” lack the manners and taste of the “old rich” but long to break into the polite society of the East Eggers.
In this chapter, we are introduced to the character of Gatsby. Many aspects of Gatsby’s world are intriguing because they seem wrong. For instance, he seems to throw parties at which he knows none of his guests. His accent seems affected, and his habit of calling people “old sport” is hard to place. The tone of Nick’s narration suggests that many of the inhabitants of East Egg and West Egg use an show of luxury to cover up their inner corruption and moral problems, but Gatsby seems to use his wealth to mask something entirely different and perhaps more profound. The mystery of Gatsby becomes the motivating question of the book. One early clue to Gatsby’s character in this chapter is his mysterious conversation with Jordan Baker. Though Nick does not know what Gatsby says to her, the fact that Jordan now knows something “remarkable” about Gatsby means that a part of the solution to the enigma of Gatsby is now loose among Nick’s circle of connections.
Nick realizes that Jordan is dishonest, selfish, and cynical, but he is attracted to her vitality nevertheless. Their relationship emphasizes the fact that Nick becomes acclimated to life in the East, abandoning his Western values to take advantage of the excitement of his new surroundings.
The Essay on Gatsby And The American Dream
... to Gatsby, despite his financial rise. Daisy and her husband Tom are both from privileged families, much like Nick. Daisy is a former love interest ... It is only at the end of the chapter that we meet Jay Gatsby. Nick observes him walking alone in the early evening: ... to advance financially and socially while remaining virtuous. The American dream, a hope held by many people throughout the history of ...
The Chapter focuses on the gap between perception and reality: the party is seen as a great party but is more like an elaborate theatrical presentation.
CHAPTER IV: Gatsby’s romantic hope
He claims, for instance, to be the son of wealthy, dead parents from the Midwest. When Nick asks which Midwestern city he is from, Gatsby replies, “San Francisco.” Gatsby then lists a long and preposterously detailed set of accomplishments: he claims to have been educated at Oxford, to have collected jewels in the capitals of Europe, to have hunted big game, and to have been awarded medals in World War I by multiple European countries. Seeing Nick’s skepticism, Gatsby produces a medal from Montenegro and a picture of himself playing cricket at Oxford.
Gatsby takes Nick to lunch and introduces him to Meyer Wolfshiem, who, he says, was responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series. Wolfshiem is a shady character with underground business connections. He gives Nick the impression that the source of Gatsby’s wealth might be unhonest, and that Gatsby may even have ties to the sort of organized crime with which Wolfshiem is associated.
Jordan’s story describes Gatsby as a lovesick, innocent young soldier, desperately trying to win the woman of his dreams. Now that Gatsby is a known character in the novel, the weird inner conflict that enables Nick to feel such contradictory admiration and repulsion for him is shown. Gatsby the lovesick soldier is an attractive figure, representative of hope, Gatsby the crooked businessman, representative of greed and moral corruption, is not.
The main symbol of the chapter is the green light which makes sense now: representing the love Gatsby has for Daisy. That light, so mysterious in the first chapter shows his love for Daisy, and his attempt to make that love real. It can also represent the American dream itself, Gatsby’s wish to achieve his dream, the connection of his dream to the pursuit of money and wealth and the optimism with which he goes about achieving his dream is the main point of the American dream.
The Essay on The Great Gatsby Daisy Tom Myrtle 2
Nick Carraway Nick Carraway is the narrator of the entire novel, he is also the protagonist of his own plot. He is a practical and conservative man who turns thirty during the course of the story. Raised in a small town in the Midwest, in New York he is in the bond business. He rents a small bungalow out from the city on a fashionable island known as West Egg. His next door neighbor is Jay Gatsby, ...
CHAPTER V: The first meeting
With this fifth chapter, the plot shifts its focus to the romance between Gatsby and Daisy, and the tensions in their relationship actualize themselves.
The chapter is entirely focused on the meeting between Daisy and Gatsby. It rains on the day of the meeting, and Gatsby becomes terribly nervous. At first, Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy is terribly awkward. Gatsby knocks Nick’s clock over and tells Nick sorrowfully that the meeting was a mistake. After he leaves the two alone for half an hour, however, Nick returns to find them radiantly happy. Outside, the rain has stopped. There is a link between the rain and the mood during the scene. In fact, as soon as the mood is less tense, the rain immediately stops.
Gatsby’s character throughout his meeting with Daisy is at its purest and most revealing. The theatrical quality that he often projects falls away. He forgets to play the role of the Oxford-educated man and shows himself to be a crazy in love, awkward young man. Daisy, too, is moved to sincerity when her emotions get the better of her. Before the meeting, Daisy displays her usual sarcastic humor: when Nick invites her to tea and asks her not to bring Tom, she responds, “Who is ‘Tom’?” But seeing Gatsby totally makes her changing. When she goes to Gatsby’s house, she is overwhelmed by tears of joy at his success and cries seeing his piles of expensive English shirts.
One of the main qualities that Nick possesses, other than honesty, is tolerance. His arrangement of the meeting brings his tolerance to the level of complicity, just like when he tolerantly observes Tom’s attitude with Myrtle. Ironically, until now, Nick is disgusted by the lack of moral values that he witnesses among the rich in New York. However, Nick’s actions may be justified by the intense and sincere love that Gatsby and Daisy clearly feel for each other, a love that Nick thinks that is absent from Daisy’s relationship with Tom.
In the chapter, Nick often compares Gatsby’s house to the house of a Lord, and his imported clothes, antiques, and all luxuries showing the lifestyle of a British aristocrat.
Chapter 5 suggests that Gatsby’s dream of improvement gives a superficial imitation of the old European social system that America left behind.
The Essay on Jay Gatsby Daisy Nick Impress
The Value of Jay Gatsby Jay Gatsby, who is one of the main characters of the Great Gatsby, is a man with a mysterious background and an unknown personality. He doesn't mention too much about his past except certain fabricated highlights of his life which were designed to impress others. The strange and humorous thing is that he carries articles of evidence that back up most of his lies to prove ...
CHAPTER VI: The failed party
In this chapter, we learn more about Gatsby’s early life. Gatsby was born James Gatz on a North Dakota farm. He worked on Lake Superior fishing for salmon. One day, he saw a yacht owned by Dan Cody, a wealthy copper entrepreneur, and rowed out to warn him about an impending storm. The grateful Cody took Gatz, who gave his name as Jay Gatsby, on board his yacht as his personal assistant. Gatsby fell in love with wealth and luxury. Cody was a heavy drinker, and Gatsby’s job was to look after him during his drunken times. When Cody died, he left Gatsby $25,000, but Cody’s mistress prevented him from gaining his inheritance. Gatsby then wanted to become a wealthy and successful man.
Gatsby’s party strikes Nick much more unfavorably this time around he finds it oppressive and notices that even Daisy has a bad time. Gatsby is unhappy because Daisy has had such an unpleasant time. Gatsby wants things to be exactly the same as they were before he left Louisville: he wants Daisy to leave Tom so that he can be with her.
Nick’s description of Gatsby’s early life reveals the sensitivity to status that encourages Gatsby on. His humiliation at having to work as a janitor in college contrasts with his experiences when he meets Dan Cody, who represents everything that Gatsby wants. Extremely aware of his poverty, the young Gatsby develops a powerful obsession with gaining wealth and status. Gatsby’s act of enrich himself symbolizes his wish to get rid of his lower-class identity and recast himself as the wealthy man he envisages. Gatsby’s most powerfully realized dream is his own identity. It is important to realize, in addition, that Gatsby’s conception of Daisy is itself a dream. He thinks of her as the girl who loved him in Louisville, blinding himself to the reality that she would never desert her own class and background to be with him.
The theme of social classes is illustrated by the contempt with which the aristocratic East Eggers, Tom and the Sloanes, see Gatsby. Even though Gatsby seems to have as much money as they do, he lacks their sense of social values and aristocratic grace. As a result, they mock and despise him for being “new money.” The division between East Egg and West Egg is shown, even in the very rich classes where there still are distinctions.
CHAPTER VII: The conflict
Tom accuses Gatsby of lying about having attended Oxford. Gatsby responds that he did attend Oxford—for five months, in an army program following the war. Tom asks Gatsby about his intentions for Daisy, and Gatsby replies that Daisy loves him, not Tom. Tom claims that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could not possibly understand. He then accuses Gatsby of running a bootlegging operation. The confrontation of Gatsby and Tom over Daisy brings out the troubling aspects of both characters. Throughout the chapters, we can have suspicions about Gatsby’s criminal activity. Research confirms Tom’s suspicions, and he wields his knowledge of Gatsby’s illegal activities in front of everyone to disgrace him. Similarly, Tom’s sexism and hypocrisy become clearer and more prominent during the confrontation. He has no moral values about his own affairs, but when faced with his wife’s infidelity, he assumes the position of outraged victim.
The Essay on The Great Gatsby Daisy Tom Myrtle
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald offers up commentary on a variety of themes justice, power, greed, and betrayal, the American dream and so on. Each one of these themes is demonstrated through the relationships, which the characters have. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct social groups, in which each character fits. By creating distinct social classes - old money, new money, and ...
Gatsby’s obsession with recovering a heavenly past obliges him to order Daisy to tell Tom that she has never loved him. Gatsby needs to know that she has always loved him, that she has always been loyal to him. Similarly, pleading with Daisy, Tom cites their intimate personal history to remind her that she has had feelings for him, he controls the past. Tom destroys Gatsby’s vision of the future. The fact that Tom feels secure enough to send Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby that Gatsby’s dream is dead, gone forever. Still, Gatsby’s decision to take the blame for Daisy shows the love he still feels for her and illustrates the nobility that defines him. In the opposite, Daisy shows a huge lack of concern for him.
There is like a cycle between the first chapter and this one: Gatsby stands alone in the moonlight obsessed by Daisy. In the first chapter, he stretches his arms out toward the green light across the water, optimistic about the future. Now, he has made it past the green light, onto the lawn of Daisy’s house, but his dream has gone forever.
CHAPTER VIII: Gatsby’s death
In this Chapter and in the previous one, there’s a connection between the weather and the emotional atmosphere of the story; the weather corresponds to the plot. In the previous chapter, Gatsby’s tensed confrontation with Tom took place on the hottest day of the summer. Now that the fire has gone out of Gatsby’s life with Daisy’s decision to remain with Tom, the weather suddenly cools, and autumn sneaks into the air, the gardener even wants to drain the pool to keep falling leaves from blocking the drains. In the same way that he hopes of making Daisy love him the way she used to, he insists on swimming in the pool like if it was still summer. His death results from his severe refusal to accept what he cannot control: the passage of time.
Nick identifies Daisy’s wealth and privilege (her many clothes, perfect house, lack of fear or worry) as a central part of Gatsby’s attraction to her. The reader has already seen that Gatsby idolizes both wealth and Daisy. Now it becomes clear that the two are like the same in Gatsby’s mind. Nick suggests that by making Daisy the focus of his life, Gatsby surrenders his power of visionary hope to the simple task of gaining wealth. Gatsby’s dream is reduced to a motivation for material gain because the object of his dream is worthless of his power of dreaming, the quality that makes him “great” in the first place.
Both Gatsby and Wilson live in a world in which dreams are exposed as illusions, and cruel, unfeeling men such as Tom receive the love of women longed for by dreamers.
For Gatsby, Daisy is a symbol of everything he wants, and he made the green light on her dock a symbol of his destiny with her. When he thinks about Gatsby’s death, Nick suggests that all symbols are created by the mind they do not have any real meaning, but people invest them with meaning. Nick writes that Gatsby must have realized “what a grotesque thing a rose is.” The rose has been a symbol of beauty since poetry exists. Nick suggests that roses aren’t really beautiful, but that people only view them that way because they choose to do so. Daisy is “grotesque” in the same way: Gatsby has given her a beauty and meaning by making her the object of his dream. For anyone else, Daisy would be simply an idle, bored, rich young woman with no particular moral strength.
CHAPTER IX: Gatsby’s funeral
For Nick, the Midwest seems dreary and ordinary compared to the excitement of the East, but the East is merely a sparkling surface; it lacks the moral center of the Midwest. This fundamental immorality troubles the characters of the novel, all Westerners and leads them to failure. The “quality of distortion” that attracts them to the East disgusts Nick and leads to his decision to move back to Minnesota.
Gatsby, alone among Nick’s connections, has the courage and nobility to dream of creating a radically different future for himself, but his dream ends in failure for several reasons: his methods are criminal, he can never gain his place into the American aristocracy (which he would have to do to win Daisy), and his new identity is a fake identity. The novel questions the idea of an America in which all things are possible if one simply tries hard enough.
The problem of American dreams is related to the problem of how to deal with the past. It promises the potential for unlimited advancement, regardless of where they come from or how poor their backgrounds are. Gatsby’s failure suggests that it may be impossible for one to disown one’s past so completely. There seems to be an impossible divide separating Gatsby and Daisy, which is certainly part of her attraction for him. This divide clearly comes from their different backgrounds and social contexts.
Throughout the novel, Nick’s judgments of the other characters are based in the values that he inherited from his father, the moral privileges that he refers to in the beginning of the novel. Nick’s values, so strongly fixed in the past, give him the ability to make sense out of everything in the novel except for Gatsby. In Nick’s eyes, Gatsby symbolizes an ability to dream and to escape the past that may be impossible, but that Nick values. The Great Gatsby represents Nick’s fight to integrate his own sense of the importance of the past with the freedom from the past imagined by Gatsby.
BIANCHERI
Loris
2nd 1
