The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - Free Book SummaryIntroduction The Great Gatsby is an ideal exemplar of the Great American Novel and a top ranking regular in most lists ranking 20th Century literature. Published in 1922 and considered Fitzgerald’s finest novel, The Great Gatsby came into acknowledgment over twenty years later, only after World War II. Fitzgerald himself didn’t live to view this glory. Jay Gatsby, a larger-than-life, hopeless romantic, who has later taken the face of Robert Redford, in the 1974 film adaptation (to a script by Francis Ford Coppola), is a frequent star of many high school book reports and a major character in most American literature academic studies. "Oh, The Great Gatsby... what memories... Ruth, Thanks for the summary!" Executive Summary In 1922, 29-year-old Nick Carrawy moves to New York from the Midwest, and gets together with his distant relative Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom. Nick befriends his mysterious wealthy neighbor, Jay Gatsby, only to find out that Gatsby had been Daisy’s first lover before the Great War, but couldn’t have married her due to lack of financial means. The group is mixed up in a series of parties and social events through which Nick learns that Tom has a mistress and Gatsby tries to win Daisy back. After an argument over Daisy between Gatsby and Tom, Daisy drives Gatsby’s car back home, when the car hits and kills Tom’s mistress. In his fury, the mistress’s husband, George Wilson, looks for revenge, and Tom directs him to Gatsby. After a tragic ending, Nick moves back to the Midwest where he reflects on the events. The plot takes place in 1922. It’s told by Nick Cararway, a 29 year old who has moved to Long Island. After his return from the World War, Nick felt too restless to work selling hardware in his Midwestern home town. He moved east to New York, entered the bond business, and rented an inexpensive cottage in the West Egg, a seaside community on Long Island. His new next door neighbor was a mysterious, wealthy man known as Gatsby. Shortly after arriving in New York, Nick was invited to dinner at the house of Tom and Daisy Buchanan on the better side of Long Island, where the old aristocracy resided. Nick did not know either Tom or Daisy very well, but he was Daisy’s second cousin once removed and he knew of Tom, who played football for Yale when Nick attended there. Tom led Nick into a back room of the Buchanan house, where he introduced him to Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker, an arrogant yet beautiful young woman and a well known golfer. By the time dinner was served on the porch, some untold tension was obviously building between Tom and Daisy.When Tom left to answer a phone call and did not return, Daisy stomped inside to see what was keeping her husband. Jordan wanted to eavesdrop on the Buchanans’ argument. She told Nick that Tom had met another woman in New York. When Nick returned to his apartment later that evening, he noticed the figure of the reclusive Mr. Gatsby himself, who had come outside. Nick almost called him to introduce himself, but something in Gatsby’s manner told him that he was content just then to be alone. From what Nick could see, Gatsby was staring towards the city at a “single green light, minute and far away.” A couple of days later, Tom invited Nick to come with him into the city. He took him to a shabby garage owned by a spiritless man named George Wilson. Wilson’s dowdy, plump wife, Myrtle, was in fact Tom’s mistress, and she joined them. On the ride into the City, Myrtle, along with her sister Catherine and few friends, sat in a train car separate from Tom’s. Then, everyone took a taxi together over to an apartment that Tom kept for his meetings with Myrtle. Throughout the afternoon and evening the small group drank whiskey and talked. Nick was unsuccessfully trying to find an excuse to leave, and when the party ended in a violent argument in which Tome broke Myrtle’s nose, he finally left one of the friends, named Chester McKee. Gatsby was known for throwing lavish parties, where hundreds of people “came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” Finally, Nick was invited to one of the parties by Gatsby’s butler. At the party, he again ran into Jordan, and they mingled with others in conversations about who exactly the curious Gatsby was. It seemed that none of the guests had even had a close view of their elusive host. Rumors placed him as the Kaiser’s son or as a German spy during the war, or even as a fugitive killer. After a while, Nick got into a conversation with a man about his own age. It turned out that the two men were both veterans and they began discussing their military service. Then Nick’s new friend introduced himself – he was Jay Gatsby. Later that evening, Jordan and Gatsby discussed in private something that Jordan said she was pledged to not to reveal to anyone until the right time. This free book summary of The Great Gatsby is complimentary from the www.free-book-summary.com website. Want to say Thanks? Tell about the book summary to your friends, link to it from your blog, or include a link to it in a forum. Cheers! One day, Gatsby drove Nick into the city with his grand yellow roadster, and he told Nick that Jordan will be asking Nick for a favor on his behalf. Nick was at first reluctant to believe Gatsby’s stories about being a wealthy war hero, but the he was convinced when Gatsby displayed a Montenegrin war decoration. When later Nick sees Tom and wants to introduce him to Gatsby, Gatsby vanishes. Several weeks later, Gatsby arranged for Nick to meet with Jordan, where she revealed the details of her conversation with Gatsby on the night of the party. As it turned out, Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan were a couple before the war. Gatsby at that time was a young lieutenant waiting to go to the front, and Daisy was an eighteen year old, “by far the most popular of all young girls in Louisville.” They had fallen in love, but Gatsby couldn’t afford to marry a girl of Daisy’s class. When he was sent overseas, Daisy could not wait, and she got married to Tom Buchanan. Then came the favor on Gatsby’s behalf, who was arranging all those parties hoping Daisy would show up. Nick was asked to invite Daisy to his place some afternoon and then let Gatsby, who was still in love with Daisy, to “conveniently” drop in. Nick agreed to set things up. And so, with Nick’s help, Gatsby and Daisy were reunited. After some awkward chitchat, Gatsby asked Daisy and Nick to go next-door and see his place. Gatsby couldn’t take his eyes off Daisy. Finally, as dusk was settling, Gatsby pointed out to Daisy that “if it wasn’t for the mist, we could see your home across the bay… You always have a green light that burns all night.” Nick and Jordan started a relationship that Nick predicted would be superficial. Also, a love affair between Gatsby and Daisy began and went on for weeks. One morning Gatsby surprised Nick with an invitation to lunch with him at Daisy’s the following day. Gatsby, Jordan, Tom and Daisy were all there and the Buchanans’ house. It was a very hot day and after some tension-filled conversation, they all agreed to drive to New York to escape the heat in a hotel room. Tom insisted on switching cars with Gatsby for the drive into the city, so Gatsby and Daisy took Tom’s car while Tom drove with Nick and Jordan in Gatsby’s fabulous yellow roadster. Tom wanted to spin by Wilson’s garage to show off. At the station, Myrtle was looking out from her second-story window: “Her eyes, wide with jealous terror, were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan Baker, whom she took to be his wife.” Meanwhile, Wilson told o Tom that he has been suspecting that his wife was seeing another man, and that the two of them would soon be moving west. Tom was confused and he started feeling the “hot whips of panic.” His wife and mistress were slipping out of his control. In New York, Tom’s group joined Gatsby and Daisy, and they all retired to the Plaza Hotel to last out the heat sipping mint juleps. Soon after, Tom and Gatsby got into a heated argument over Daisy, and Tom told Gatsby that nothing could happen between Daisy and him. In his anger, Gatsby roared that Daisy was in love with him now, and that she never did love Tom. Tom shouted that it was a lie and turned to Daisy for acquittal. Although she wanted to side with Gatsby, she could not. “I can’t say I never loved Tom… It wouldn’t be true,” she stuttered; but then she tearfully told her husband Tom that she was leaving him. Tom was devastated. After the argument at the hotel, Gatsby and Daisy headed back home in Gatsby's yellow roadster, while Tom, Nick and Jordan drove a few miles behind. This free book summary of The Great Gatsby is complimentary from the www.free-book-summary.com website. Want to say Thanks? Tell about the book summary to your friends, link to it from your blog, or include a link to it in a forum. Cheers! During their stay at the hotel, George Wilson has been arguing with his wife Myrtle, whom he suspected was involved with another man. Myrtle ran outside and was struck down by Gatsby's roadster. But it was Daisy who drove the car, and after the accident – they sped away. When Tom’s group came upon the scene of the horrible accident in front of Wilson’s garage – Myrtle Wilson had been dead. They learned that the “yellow car” that had hit her hadn’t even stopped. Tom was convinced that Gatsby had struck and killed Myrtle, his mistress, and he drove hurriedly on home with tears streaming down his face. “The God damned coward!” he said, “He didn’t even stop his car.” When they came back to the Buchanan house, Nick went outside to hail a taxi home. There, concealed in the shadows, he found Gatsby, who told him what had happened: Daisy, angered and confused, had demanded to drive Gatsby’s car home. When they had passed Wilson’s garage, Myrtle, thought it was Tom in the car, so she ran into its path. Now Gatsby was there to protect Daisy in case Tom tried to hurt her. Nick then convinced Gatsby to go home, telling him that Daisy would be alright. George Wilson was weeping all night. By morning time, he had determined to punish the driver of the yellow car. He got to Tom’s house with a gun, where Tom was packing to run away with Daisy. Protecting himself, Tom told Wilson that Gatsby had been Myrtle’s secret lover and the owner of the yellow car. Wilson found Gatsby at his mansion, swimming in his pool. He shot and killed him, and then turned the gun on himself to commit suicide. Nick tried to organize a respectable funeral for Gatsby, but nobody came; not one of Gatsby’s party friends and business associates, not Daisy, not Jordan. Except for Nick and the servants, the only ones to attend were Gatsby’s father Mr. Gatz, and a party guest called “Owl-eyes”, who was amazed that none of the other party goers had arrived. After that summer, Nick stopped his relationship with Jordan, and after a short run-in with Tom, returned to his modest Midwest town, where he reflected on Gatsby and told this story. "Ruth, Many many thanks for the free summary of The Great Gatsby. Cheers!"
Context The Great Gatsby was written in the early 1920’s – the Great War was over and the American economy was booming. Fitzgerald, through the narrator voice, admired the new riches of the time, but on the same time, was uncomfortable with the materialism and lack of morality. Despite the openness of the era, social classes stood strong, and they are the background of the novel. Fitzgerald, who had lost his first love due to social standing differences, separated Gatsby and Daisy on the same grounds. The Great Gatsby is considered a grand model of the great American novel and is a top ranking regular in most lists ranking 20th Century literature. The Complete Book Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby (Penguin).
|
