The Great Gatsby
Chapters - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chapter 1
Nick Carraway, a young bond trader from the Midwest, settles into a modest cottage in West Egg on Long Island during the summer of 1922. He introduces himself as a tolerant, observant man who has come east to learn the bond business. His small house sits next door to a lavish mansion belonging to a mysterious neighbour named Gatsby.
Nick drives across the bay to fashionable East Egg to dine with his second cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom Buchanan, a powerfully built former football star from a wealthy family. At dinner he meets Jordan Baker, a cool, athletic young woman he vaguely recognises. The evening is tense - the telephone rings repeatedly, and Jordan quietly reveals that Tom has a mistress in New York. Daisy confides her unhappiness to Nick in a private moment on the veranda, though her sincerity remains ambiguous.
Returning home late that night, Nick catches his first glimpse of Gatsby standing alone on the lawn, arms stretched toward the darkness across the water. In the distance, a single green light glimmers at the end of a dock.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Jay Gatsby·Mentioned: Jay Gatsby
Chapter 2
Between West Egg and New York lies a desolate stretch of land known as the valley of ashes, overlooked by the giant faded eyes of an old advertising billboard for Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. One Sunday afternoon, Tom forces Nick off the train at this bleak spot and drags him to a run-down garage owned by George Wilson, a pale, spiritless man. Tom's true purpose is to collect his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, George's wife - a vital, sensuous woman who walks past her husband as though he were invisible.
The three travel into Manhattan to a small apartment Tom keeps for their affair. Myrtle's sister Catherine arrives, along with the McKees from downstairs, and the afternoon dissolves into a drunken, chaotic gathering. Catherine gossips that Tom and Myrtle cannot marry because Daisy is supposedly Catholic - a lie, Nick notes. Myrtle grows increasingly grand and affected, telling the story of how she met Tom on a train.
The party ends violently when Myrtle begins shouting Daisy's name and Tom breaks her nose with a single blow. Nick finds himself half asleep in Pennsylvania Station in the early morning hours, waiting for a train home.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Tom Buchanan, George Wilson, Myrtle Wilson, Catherine, Mr McKee, Mrs McKee·Mentioned: Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan
Chapter 3
Nick describes the extravagant parties that Gatsby throws every weekend - the orchestra, the catered food, the rivers of champagne, and the hundreds of guests who arrive uninvited. Nick is one of the few who actually receives a formal invitation. At the party he reconnects with Jordan Baker and they wander the grounds together, hearing wild rumours about their host - that he killed a man, that he was a German spy.
In Gatsby's library, they encounter a stout, owl-eyed man - Owl Eyes - who is drunkenly astonished to discover that Gatsby's books are real. Nick then falls into conversation with a charming, slightly formal man his own age who turns out to be Gatsby himself. Gatsby is called away repeatedly by telephone calls from Chicago and Philadelphia, lending an air of mystery to his affairs. Before Nick leaves, Jordan is summoned for a private conversation with Gatsby and emerges saying she has heard something amazing.
The chapter closes with Nick reflecting on his daily life in the city - his work, his growing attraction to Jordan, and his discovery that she is incurably dishonest. He declares himself one of the few honest people he has ever known.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker, Owl Eyes·Mentioned: Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan
Chapter 4
Gatsby takes Nick for a ride to the city in his enormous cream-coloured car and attempts to tell Nick his life story - claiming wealthy Midwestern parents, an Oxford education, war decorations, and a life spent drifting through European capitals. Nick is sceptical until Gatsby produces a medal from Montenegro and a photograph from Oxford. At lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to Meyer Wolfsheim, a shady businessman with cuff buttons made of human molars, whom Gatsby identifies as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series.
Afterward, Nick runs into Tom at the restaurant, and Gatsby abruptly vanishes. That afternoon, Jordan reveals Gatsby's secret: years ago, as a young officer in Louisville, Gatsby fell in love with Daisy before she married Tom. Gatsby has bought his mansion across the bay from the Buchanans' home solely to be near her. Jordan explains that Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy to tea - so that Gatsby can see her again after five years.
Nick is shaken by the modesty of the request compared to the scale of Gatsby's preparations. He agrees to arrange the meeting.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim, Tom Buchanan·Mentioned: Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, Klipspringer
Chapter 5
Nick arranges for Daisy to come to tea, warning her not to bring Tom. Gatsby is beside himself with nervous anticipation - he has Nick's grass cut, sends over a greenhouse of flowers, and arrives early in a white flannel suit, pale and sleepless. When Daisy arrives, Gatsby nearly flees out the back door, and their initial meeting is painfully awkward - he knocks over a clock on the mantelpiece and declares the whole thing a terrible mistake.
Nick steps outside for half an hour to give them privacy. When he returns, everything has changed: Daisy's face is smeared with tears and Gatsby is glowing with joy. Gatsby then insists on showing Daisy his mansion next door - the period rooms, the gardens, his wardrobe of shirts sent from England, which makes Daisy cry. He points out the green light at the end of her dock, which he has been watching across the bay, and its symbolic power seems to diminish now that she is beside him.
As evening falls, Nick leaves the reunited pair together. Klipspringer plays piano while Gatsby and Daisy sit close on the couch, lost in each other, having forgotten Nick entirely.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Klipspringer·Mentioned: Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Dan Cody
Chapter 6
Nick pauses the narrative to reveal Gatsby's true origins. He was born James Gatz in North Dakota to shiftless farm parents, and reinvented himself at seventeen when he rowed out to warn Dan Cody, a wealthy copper magnate, about dangerous weather on Lake Superior. Cody took the young Gatsby aboard his yacht as a personal assistant for five years, but when Cody died, the inheritance was seized by a woman named Ella Kaye, leaving Gatsby with nothing but his education and ambition.
Weeks pass with little contact between Nick and Gatsby. Then one Sunday, Tom drops in at Gatsby's house with a man named Sloane and a woman on horseback. The encounter is awkward - the woman invites Gatsby to supper but Sloane clearly does not want him there. The following Saturday, Tom and Daisy attend one of Gatsby's parties together. Daisy is offended by the vulgarity of West Egg, and Tom grows suspicious, vowing to investigate Gatsby's background.
Afterward, Gatsby confides to Nick that Daisy did not enjoy herself. He reveals his impossible wish: that Daisy will tell Tom she never loved him, and that they can return to Louisville and start over as if the last five years never happened. Nick warns him that you cannot repeat the past. Gatsby replies incredulously, 'Why of course you can!'
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Mr Sloane·Mentioned: Dan Cody
Chapter 7
On the hottest day of summer, Nick and Gatsby go to lunch at the Buchanans' house, where Jordan is also staying. Daisy openly flirts with Gatsby, telling him she loves him, and Tom suddenly realises what is happening between them. The group drives into New York in two cars - Tom takes Gatsby's yellow car and stops for petrol at Wilson's garage, where George Wilson reveals he has discovered his wife's secret life and plans to take her away. Myrtle watches from an upstairs window, mistaking Jordan for Tom's wife.
At the Plaza Hotel, the confrontation erupts. Tom exposes Gatsby's bootlegging connections with Wolfsheim and demands to know his intentions. Gatsby insists that Daisy never loved Tom, but when pressed, Daisy cannot deny that she once loved her husband. Gatsby's dream begins to crumble before his eyes. Tom, sensing victory, sends Daisy home with Gatsby in the yellow car.
Driving back through the valley of ashes, Tom, Nick, and Jordan discover a crowd outside Wilson's garage. Myrtle has been struck and killed by a large yellow car that did not stop. Tom is distraught but quickly tells Wilson the yellow car was not his. Later that night, Gatsby reveals to Nick that Daisy was driving when the car hit Myrtle, but he intends to take the blame. He stands vigil outside the Buchanans' house all night, but inside, Nick glimpses Daisy and Tom sitting together at the kitchen table in an unmistakable air of conspiracy.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, George Wilson, Jordan Baker, Pammy Buchanan·Mentioned: Meyer Wolfsheim, Michaelis
Chapter 8
Nick goes to Gatsby's house at dawn and finds him exhausted and dejected. He urges Gatsby to leave, but Gatsby refuses - he is waiting for Daisy to call. Gatsby confides the full story of his romance with Daisy in Louisville: how he fell in love with her knowing he had no right to her world, how he was sent to Oxford after the war while she married Tom, and how he returned penniless to Louisville only to find her gone.
That morning, Nick reluctantly leaves for work. He phones Jordan, but their conversation is strained and they effectively break up. He tries repeatedly to reach Gatsby by telephone but the line is busy. Meanwhile, the narrative shifts to George Wilson's garage, where Wilson has spent the night in agony, telling his neighbour Michaelis that the driver of the yellow car murdered his wife. By dawn, Wilson is fixated on the eyes of Doctor Eckleburg's billboard, confusing them with the eyes of God.
Wilson disappears from the garage and spends hours tracking down the owner of the yellow car. That afternoon, Gatsby goes for his first swim of the summer in his pool. Wilson arrives and shoots Gatsby dead, then turns the gun on himself. Nick rushes home from the city to find both bodies - Gatsby floating on a mattress in the pool, Wilson in the grass nearby.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Jay Gatsby, George Wilson, Michaelis·Mentioned: Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, Meyer Wolfsheim
Chapter 9
In the days after Gatsby's death, Nick finds himself the only person willing to take responsibility. Daisy and Tom have left town without a forwarding address or a word. Meyer Wolfsheim sends a letter expressing shock but refuses to get involved. Klipspringer calls only to ask about a pair of tennis shoes he left behind. Nick tracks down Wolfsheim in his Broadway office, but Wolfsheim will not attend the funeral, saying he makes it a rule never to get mixed up when a man is killed.
Gatsby's father, Henry C. Gatz, arrives from Minnesota - a solemn old man overwhelmed by his son's mansion. He shows Nick a photograph of the house and a boyhood copy of Hopalong Cassidy in which young Jimmy Gatz had written a daily schedule and list of self-improvement resolutions. The funeral is almost deserted: only Nick, Mr Gatz, a few servants, the postman, and Owl Eyes - the man from the library - attend.
Nick breaks things off with Jordan, who tells him she is engaged to another man. He encounters Tom one last time on Fifth Avenue; Tom admits he told Wilson that the yellow car belonged to Gatsby. Nick reflects that Tom and Daisy were careless people who smashed things up and retreated into their money. He prepares to return to the Midwest, and on his last night, sits on the beach contemplating Gatsby's belief in the green light and the unattainable future. The novel closes with Nick's meditation on how we all beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
POV: Nick Carraway·On page: Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim, Owl Eyes, Henry C. Gatz·Mentioned: Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, George Wilson, Michaelis, Myrtle Wilson