Summary

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a mysterious but exceptionally rich man called Jay Gatsby. Set in 1922, the novel is narrated by Nick Carraway, a young man who has come from the Midwest to seek his fortune in New York, and who lives next door to Gatsby. Nick initially knows nothing about his neighbor except that he throws extravagant parties every week.

They live in the fictional West Egg, a place which is considered unfashionable because it is populated by people with new money. Nick, however, is highly educated and has social connections with the more fashionable East Egg, where people with older wealthy families live, including his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom.

Nick is invited to dinner at the Buchanans’, where they introduce him to Jordan Baker, a beautiful and very modern young woman with whom Nick later starts a romantic relationship. Nick discovers from Jordan that the Buchanans’ marriage is not a happy one and that Tom is having an affair with a married woman called Myrtle. Myrtle lives at the gas station in the so-called valley of ashes, an unpleasant wasteland between East Egg and New York City. Nick and Tom attend a party with Myrtle and her friends. The guests become increasingly drunk and the chaotic party...