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1-Page Summary of The Great Gatsby

Overall Summary

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 that captures the hedonism of the 1920s, which was known as The Jazz Age. It follows a cast of characters who live on Long Island’s West Egg and East Egg. Although it received lukewarm reviews when it came out, many modern scholars consider The Great Gatsby to be one of America’s greatest novels. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Great Gatsby 2nd on its list of best English-language novels published during the 20th century.

Summary of the Book

After World War I, the narrator, Nick Carraway, moves to Long Island. Although he is from Minnesota and has a sense of wanderlust after his time in Europe during the war, he feels that New York City will be more exciting than Minnesota. He finds himself living in West Egg with Tom Buchanan and his wife Daisy. Both are very wealthy people who live on an exclusive part of Long Island called East Egg where most people have old money or new money (and not much of it).

One night, Nick meets Jay Gatsby. He is very wealthy and throws lavish parties at his home, but he has few close friends. He invites Nick to one of his parties, and they become acquainted. Jordan approaches Nick to ask him if he can help her get back together with Gatsby because she used to be in love with him.

Gatsby and Daisy begin an affair, which soon becomes apparent to Tom. He tells Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal because he’s not from a wealthy family but instead is an alcohol smuggler with humble origins. After the revelation, Gatsby and Daisy drive away, and Daisy runs over Myrtle by accident.

Tom and George don’t stop the car when they see Wilson’s body. Later, Tom convinces George that Gatsby was at fault for the accident. In a fit of rage, George goes after Gatsby to kill him but ends up killing himself instead. None of their friends show up at the funeral except Nick. He decides it’s time to move back home to St. Paul where he grew up.

Chapter 2

Nick describes the area between West Egg and East Egg, which is a valley of ashes. It’s an ugly wasteland that was created by factories dumping their ash there.

Over the ash dump, on an old billboard, there is a picture of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg and his optometry practice.

The train stop near the dump turns out to be where Tom’s mistress lives. Her husband owns a car repair shop that is not doing very well. As the chapter begins, Tom interrupts Nick on his way to New York City and drags him off to meet his Myrtle, who happens to be his “girl.”

After a brief conversation with Tom about selling his car, Myrtle and Tom both agree to meet at the train station. To Nick’s surprise, he finds her unattractive. The three of them then head to New York City where they buy a puppy for no reason at all. They arrive at an apartment that Tom rents out for him and Myrtle to have sex in whenever they want. The party includes Catherine (Myrtle’s sister), Mr. McKee (a photographer who is not very good) and some other neighbors from their building.

A horrible moment occurs when Myrtle mentions Daisy’s name. She repeats “Daisy” despite Tom’s anger, and he strikes her in the face with his fist. Nick leaves the party to go find Mr. McKee so they can leave together, but he blacks out before that happens. When he comes to, it is four o’clock in the morning and he is standing at Mr. McKee’s bedside looking at some poorly done photographs of a woman who resembles Daisy – though she isn’t named by him as yet – being abused by men dressed like Al Capone gangsters from Chicago (the city where Gatsby was born) or New York City (where both Nick and Gatsby grew up). He manages to get home on the train after this surreal experience, which ends with him waiting for a train at 4 AM back home.