The Great Gatsby

F. scott fitzgerald.

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Maybe you've just finished The Great Gatsby and need some guidance for unpacking its complex themes and symbols. Or maybe it's been awhile since you last read this novel, so you need a refresher on its plot and characters. Or maybe you're in the middle of reading it and want to double check that you're not missing the important stuff. Whatever you need - we've got you covered with this comprehensive summary of one of the great American novels of all time!

Not only does this complete The Great Gatsby summary provide a detailed synopsis of the plot, but it'll also give you: capsule descriptions for the book's major characters, short explanations of most important themes, as well as links to in-depth articles about these and other topics.

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Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

The Great Gatsby Summary: The Full Plot

Our narrator, Nick Carraway, moves to the East Coast to work as a bond trader in Manhattan. He rents a small house in West Egg, a nouveau riche town in Long Island. In East Egg, the next town over, where old money people live, Nick reconnects with his cousin Daisy Buchanan, her husband Tom, and meets their friend Jordan Baker.

Tom takes Nick to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is married to George Wilson, who runs a gas station in a gross and dirty neighborhood in Queens. Tom, Nick, and Myrtle go to Manhattan, where she hosts a small party that ends with Tom punching her in the face.

Nick meets his next-door neighbor, Jay Gatsby, a very rich man who lives in a giant mansion and throws wildly extravagant parties every weekend, and who is a mysterious person no one knows much about.

Gatsby takes Nick to lunch and introduces him to his business partner - a gangster named Meyer Wolfshiem.

Nick starts a relationship with Jordan. Through her, Nick finds out that Gatsby and Daisy were in love five years ago, and that Gatsby would like to see her again.

Nick arranges for Daisy to come over to his house so that Gatsby can "accidentally" drop by. Daisy and Gatsby start having an affair.

Tom and Daisy come to one of Gatsby's parties. Daisy is disgusted by the ostentatiously vulgar display of wealth, and Tom immediately sees that Gatsby's money most likely comes from crime.

We learn that Gatsby was born into a poor farming family as James Gatz. He has always been extremely ambitious, creating the Jay Gatsby persona as a way of transforming himself into a successful self-made man—the ideal of the American Dream.

Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Jordan get together for lunch. At this lunch, Daisy and Gatsby are planning to tell Tom that she is leaving him. Gatsby suddenly feels uncomfortable doing this in Tom's house, and Daisy suggests going to Manhattan instead.

In Manhattan, the five of them get a suite at the Plaza Hotel where many secrets come out. Gatsby reveals that Daisy is in love with him. Tom in turn reveals that Gatsby is a bootlegger, and is probably engaged in other criminal activities as well. Gatsby demands that Daisy renounce Tom entirely, and say that she has never loved him. Daisy can't bring herself to say this because it isn't true, crushing Gatsby's dream and obsession. It's clear that their relationship is over and that Daisy has chosen to stay with Tom.

That evening, Daisy and Gatsby drive home in his car, with Daisy behind the wheel. When they drive by the Wilson gas station, Myrtle runs out to the car because she thinks it's Tom driving by. Daisy hits and kills her, driving off without stopping.

Nick, Jordan, and Tom investigate the accident. Tom tells George Wilson that the car that struck Myrtle belongs to Gatsby, and George decides that Gatsby must also be Myrtle's lover.

That night, Gatsby decides to take the blame for the accident. He is still waiting for Daisy to change her mind and come back to him, but she and Tom skip town the next day. Nick breaks up with Jordan because she is completely unconcerned about Myrtle's death.

Gatsby tells Nick some more of his story. As an officer in the army, he met and fell in love with Daisy, but after a month had to ship out to fight in WWI. Two years later, before he could get home, she married Tom. Gatsby has been obsessed with getting Daisy back since he shipped out to fight five years earlier.

The next day, George Wilson shoots and kills Gatsby, and then himself.

The police leave the Buchanans and Myrtle's affair out of the report on the murder-suicide.

Nick tries to find people to come to Gatsby's funeral, but everyone who pretended to be Gatsby's friend and came to his parties now refuses to come. Even Gatsby's partner Wolfshiem doesn't want to go to the funeral. Wolfshiem explains that he first gave Gatsby a job after WWI and that they have been partners in many illegal activities together.

Gatsby's father comes to the funeral from Minnesota. He shows Nick a self-improvement plan that Gatsby had written for himself as a boy.

Disillusioned with his time on the East coast, Nick decides to return to his home in the Midwest.

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Other Ways to Study the Plot of The Great Gatsby

See what happens when in actual chronological order and without flashbacks in our Great Gatsby timeline .

Read our individual The Great Gatsby chapter summaries for more in-depth details about plot, important quotes and character beats, and how the novel's major themes get reflected:

Learn the significance behind the novel's title , its beginning , and its ending .

List of the Major Characters in The Great Gatsby

Click on each character's name to read an in-depth article analyzing their place in the novel.

Nick Carraway —our narrator, but not the book's main character. Coming East from the Midwest to learn the bond business, Nick is horrified by the materialism and superficiality he finds in Manhattan and Long Island. He ends up admiring Gatsby as a hopeful dreamer and despising the rest of the people he encounters.

Jay Gatsby —a self-made man who is driven by his love for, and obsession with, Daisy Buchanan. Born a poor farmer, Gatsby becomes materially successful through crime and spends the novel trying to recreate the perfect love he and Daisy had five years before. When she cannot renounce her marriage, Gatsby's dream is crushed.

Daisy Buchanan —a very rich young woman who is trapped in a dysfunctional marriage and oppressed by her meaningless life. Daisy has an affair with Gatsby, but is ultimately unwilling to say that she has been as obsessed with him as he has with her, and goes back to her unsatisfying, but also less demanding, relationship with her husband, Tom.

Tom Buchanan —Daisy's very rich, adulterous, bullying, racist husband. Tom is having a physically abusive affair with Myrtle Wilson. He investigates Gatsby and reveals some measure of his criminal involvement, demonstrating to Daisy that Gatsby isn't someone she should run off with. After Daisy runs over Myrtle Wilson, Tom makes up with Daisy and they skip town together.

Jordan Baker —a professional golfer who has a relationship with Nick. At first, Jordan is attractive because of her jaded, cynical attitude, but then Nick slowly sees that her inveterate lying and her complete lack of concern for other people are deal breakers.

Myrtle Wilson —the somewhat vulgar wife of a car mechanic who is unhappy in her marriage. Myrtle is having an affair with Tom, whom she likes for his rugged and brutal masculinity and for his money. Daisy runs Myrtle over, killing her in a gruesome and shocking way.

George Wilson —Myrtle's browbeaten, weak, and working class husband. George is enraged when he finds out about Myrtle's affair, and then that rage is transformed into unhinged madness when Myrtle is killed. George kills Gatsby and himself in the murder-suicide that seems to erase Gatsby and his lasting impact on the world entirely.

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Other Ways to Study Great Gatsby Characters

Need a refresher on all the other people in this book? Check out our overview of the characters or dive deeper with our detailed character analyses .

Get some help for tackling the common assignment of comparing and contrasting the novel's characters .

Start gathering relevant character quotes to beef up your essay assignments with evidence from the text.

List of the Major Themes in The Great Gatsby

Get a broad overview of the novel's themes , or click on each theme to read a detailed individual analysis.

Money and Materialism —the novel is fascinated by how people make their money, what they can and can't buy with it, and how the pursuit of wealth shapes the decisions people make and the paths their lives follow. In the novel, is it possible to be happy without a lot of money? Is it possible to be happy with it?

Society and Class —the novel can also be read as a clash between the old money set and the nouveau riche strivers and wannabes that are trying to either become them or replace them. If the novel ends with the strivers and the poor being killed off and the old money literally getting away with murder, who wins this class battle?

The American Dream —does the novel endorse or mock the dream of the rags-to-riches success story, the ideal of the self-made man? Is Gatsby a successful example of what's possible through hard work and dedication, or a sham whose crime and death demonstrate that the American Dream is a work of fiction?

Love, Desire, and Relationships —most of the major characters are driven by either love or sexual desire, but none of these connections prove lasting or stable. Is the novel saying that these are destructive forces, or is just that these characters use and feel them in the wrong way?

Death and Failure —a tone of sadness and elegy (an elegy is a song of sadness for the dead) suffuses the book, as Nick looks back at a summer that ended with three violent deaths and the defeat of one man's delusional dream. Are ambition and overreach doomed to this level of epic failure, or are they examples of the way we sweep the past under the rug when looking to the future?

Morality and Ethics —despite the fact that most of the characters in this novel cheat on their significant others, one is an accidental killer, one is an actual criminal, and one a murderer, at the end of the novel no one is punished either by the law or by public censure. Is there a way to fix the lawless, amoral, Wild East that this book describes, or does the replacement of God with a figure from a billboard mean that this is a permanent state of affairs?

The Mutability of Identity —the key to answering the title's implied questions (What makes Gatsby great? Is Gatsby great?) is whether it is possible to change oneself for good, or whether past history and experiences leave their marks forever. Gatsby wants to have it both ways: to change himself from James Gatz into a glamorous figure, but also to recapitulate and preserve in amber a moment from his past with Daisy. Does he fail because it's impossible to change? Because it's impossible to repeat the past? Or both?

Other Ways to Study Great Gatsby Themes

Often, themes are represented by the a novel's symbols. Check out our overview of the main symbols in The Great Gatsby , or click on an individual symbol for a deeper exploration of its meaning and relevance:

  • The green light at the end of Daisy's dock
  • The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
  • The valley of ashes

Themes are also often reinforced by recurring motifs. Delve into a guide to the way motifs color and enrich this work.

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The Bottom Line

  • Use our analysis, gathered quotations , and description for help with homework assignments, tests, and essays on this novel.

What's Next? More Great Gatsby Analysis and Study Guides!

Understand how the book is put together by looking at its genre, narrator, and setting .

Learn the background of and context for the novel in our explanations of the history of the composition of the book and the biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald .

Get a sense of how the novel has been adapted by reading about its many film versions .

Read an overview of how to write analytical essays about the characters in the Great Gatsby before diving into the nitty-gritty for each main character (including the question of if Jay Gatsby really is great ).

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About the Book

The Great Gatsby

By f. scott fitzgerald.

'The Great Gatsby' is generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece. It represents a cultural period in the United States that's now referred to as the Jazz Age.

Emma Baldwin

Written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

In The Great Gatsby , readers will find themselves thrust into New York in the 1920s and the lives of Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy and Tom Buchanan. The relationships between these central characters are defined by their understanding of the past, social climbing, and their desire for wealth.

The Great Gatsby Plot Summary

‘Spoiler Free’ The Great Gatsby Summary

The Great Gatsby follows Nick Carraway, a young man from the midwest who moves to New York. He meets Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire, and spends time with his cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom. As Nick learns more about the dynamic in East and West Egg, he also learns that Gatsby is in love with Daisy and wants Nick to help him rekindle their relationship. 

What at first seems like a perfect match soon results in a tragic event that should shatter the lives of everyone involved. But, as Nick learns, the people he’s surrounded himself with are vapid and entirely without empathy. 

The Great Gatsby Summary

Spoiler alert: important details of the novel are revealed below.

The Great Gatsby opens with Nick Carraway moving to New York from Minnesota in the summer of 1922. He intends to learn the bond business. The reader learns about the difference between West Egg and East Egg, districts of Long Island. Nick moves to the former, a wealthy area in which the newly rich live. It’s not as fashionable or well established as East Egg, where the generationally wealthy and upper class live. 

Nick soon meets a mysterious man, Jay Gatsby, who is his next-door neighbor. He lives in a huge mansion and throws outrageous parties every Saturday night. He travels to East Egg soon after moving in to visit his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The two are socially popular and have a great deal of money. Tom is a large man with gruff habits and prone to racist comments. He also meets Jordan Baker, a professional golfer, at their home. The three live in luxury and demonstrate their disregard and lack of empathy for others on many different occasions. 

It’s that night that Nick sees Gatsby for the first time. He’s standing at the end of his dock, looking across the water. Nick spots a green light in the distance. A light he eventually learns is on the end of Daisy’s dock. 

Soon after, Nick travels with Tom to see Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s most recent mistress. He openly flaunts this relationship even though Nick is his wife’s cousin. Her husband runs a garage in a run-down section of the city. It’s an area very different from that in which the main characters live. Myrtle and Tom fight about Daisy, Tom’s wife, and the evening ends when Tom hits Myrtle, breaking her nose. 

Nick turns up to one of Gatsby’s parties after this incident, knowing that everyone who comes to his home is accepted into the gathering. No one is ever turned away, nor is anyone ever invited. Gatsby is mysterious, staying away from his guests and preferring to watch everything than participate himself. Gatsby and Jordan speak briefly, and the latter expresses amazement at what she heard.

Gatsby and Nick drive into the city where Nick meets Meyer Wolfshiem, one of Gatsby’s underworld associates. He’s linked to organized crime. At this time, the reader learns that Gatsby told Jordan that he knew Daisy in 1917 in Louisville and is in love with her still. His parties are only an opportunity to see her. He hopes every night that she shows up. The two originally met when Gatsby was in the army. He didn’t have the money to support the kind of life she wanted to have. But, in the intervening years, he’s focused on making as much money as possible so that he could win her back.

Daisy, on the other hand, found someone with more money to marry. It turns out that Gatsby even selected his home so that he’d be across the sound from her, as close as he could get. 

Gatsby asks Nick to help him reestablish his connection with Daisy. But he’s worried Daisy isn’t going to want to see him. This results in Nick inviting Daisy to his house without informing her that Gatsby was all invited. The two reconnect and start an affair, making Nick feel like the odd one out. The three go to Gatsby’s house, where he shows Daisy around to prove how far he’s come since they knew one another years earlier. 

The reader learns more about Gatsby’s past, including the time he spent working for Dan Cody on a yacht. Gatsby changed his name when he was seventeen from James Gatz and determined to make a different kind of life for himself. Now, Gatsby believes that he can recapture the love he had in the past marking a dichotomy between the type of peers Gatsby turned himself into and the person he’s trying to reclaim. 

Tom grows suspicious about the relationship between his wife and Gatsby and soon realizes that Gatsby is in love with her. Daisy doesn’t hide her affection for Gatsby either. Tom eventually confronts Gatsby in the Plaza Hotel. Gatsby tries to get Daisy to admit that she’s never loved Tom and it was always him that she cared for. She’s unable to do that. Tom then tells Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal who made his fortune from bootlegging and other illegal activities. She returns to Tom, and he sends her home. Myrtle’s husband has also learned that his wife is having an affair, but he doesn’t know who the man is. 

The climax of the novel occurs when it’s revealed that there’s been a car accident. Daisy was driving and hit Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, with the car. But, Gatsby wants to take the blame. Myrtle’s husband, George, is informed of the death and decides that Myrtle’s lover must’ve driven the car. He finds Gatsby at the mansion and shoots him, and then kills himself. Gatsby has a small funeral, one that isn’t attended by any of those who took advantage of his hospitality. No one seems especially bothered by the man’s death. Nick, who has been having a relationship with Jordan, ends it and moves back to Minnesota. He is determined to get away from the vapid people in Gatsby’s circle. 

It turns out that Tom told George that Gatsby owned the car that hit Myrtle, a roundabout way of naming him as Myrtle’s lover rather than take the blame for that himself. Nick is disgusted by the actions of those he briefly considered friends. 

The book ends with Nick contemplating what happened to Gatsby’s dream of a life with Daisy. It was corrupted by money and the desire for social climbing. He lands on the thought that the time of the American dream, just like Gatsby’s dream, is over. 

What is the basic plot of The Great Gatsby ?

The book tells the story of a self-made millionaire, Jay Gatsby, who tries and fails to reclaim a relationship from five years prior.

What is the main message in The Great Gatsby ?

The main message is that American dream is impossible to obtain.

How did Gatsby kill himself?

Gatsby was killed by George Wilson who later killed himself.

What lesson can you learn from The Great Gatsby ?

You can learn that the past is impossible to reclaim and that the American dream is a myth.

What did Gatsby do to get rich?

Gatsby worked bootlegging alcohol and in other miscellaneous criminal enterprises with people like Meyer Wolfsheim.

Emma Baldwin

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

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Cite This Page

Baldwin, Emma " The Great Gatsby Summary 🍾 " Book Analysis , https://bookanalysis.com/f-scott-fitzgerald/the-great-gatsby/summary/ . Accessed 23 February 2024.

It'll change your perspective on books forever.

Discover 5 Secrets to the Greatest Literature

The Great Gatsby

By f. scott fitzgerald.

  • The Great Gatsby Summary

While The Great Gatsby is a highly specific portrait of American society during the Roaring Twenties, its story is also one that has been told hundreds of times, and is perhaps as old as America itself: a man claws his way from rags to riches, only to find that his wealth cannot afford him the privileges enjoyed by those born into the upper class. The central character is Jay Gatsby, a wealthy New Yorker of indeterminate occupation. Gatsby is primarily known for the lavish parties he throws each weekend at his ostentatious Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other underworld activities.

The narrator, Nick Carraway , is Gatsby's neighbor in West Egg. Nick is a young man from a prominent Midwestern family. Educated at Yale, he has come to New York to enter the bond business. In some sense, the novel is Nick's memoir, his unique view of the events of the summer of 1922; as such, his impressions and observations necessarily color the narrative as a whole. For the most part, he plays only a peripheral role in the events of the novel; he prefers to remain a passive observer.

Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan , and her husband, Tom. The Buchanans live in the posh Long Island district of East Egg; Nick, like Gatsby, resides in nearby West Egg, a less fashionable area looked down upon by those who live in East Egg. West Egg is home to the nouveau riche, people who lack established social connections, and who tend to vulgarly flaunt their wealth. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale, and comes from a privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom. At the Buchanans's, Nick meets Jordan Baker , a beautiful young woman with a cold, cynical manner. The two later become romantically involved.

Jordan tells Nick that Tom has been having an affair with Myrtle Wilson , a woman who lives in the valley of ashes, ­ an industrial wasteland outside of New York City. After visiting Tom and Daisy, Nick goes home to West Egg; there, he sees Gatsby gazing at a mysterious green light across the bay. Gatsby stretches his arms out toward the light, as though to catch and hold it.

Tom Buchanan takes Nick into New York, and on the way they stop at the garage owned by George Wilson. Wilson is the husband of Myrtle, with whom Tom has been having an affair. Tom tells Myrtle to join them later in the city. Nearby, on an enormous billboard, a pair of bespectacled blue eyes stares down at the barren landscape. These eyes once served as an advertisement; now, they brood over all that occurs in the valley of ashes.

In the city, Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to the apartment in Morningside Heights at which he maintains his affair. There, they have a lurid party with Myrtle's sister, Catherine , and an abrasive couple named McKee. They gossip about Gatsby; Catherine says that he is somehow related to Kaiser Wilhelm, the much-despised ruler of Germany during World War I. The more she drinks, the more aggressive Myrtle becomes; she begins taunting Tom about Daisy, and he reacts by breaking her nose. The party, unsurprisingly, comes to an abrupt end.

Nick Carraway attends a party at Gatsby's mansion, where he runs into Jordan Baker. At the party, few of the attendees know Gatsby; even fewer were formally invited. Before the party, Nick himself had never met Gatsby: he is a strikingly handsome, slightly dandified young man who affects an English accent. Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan Baker alone; after talking with Gatsby for quite a long time, she tells Nick that she has learned some remarkable news. She cannot yet share it with him, however.

Some time later, Gatsby visits Nick's home and invites him to lunch. At this point in the novel, Gatsby's origins are unclear. He claims to come from a wealthy San Francisco family, and says that he was educated at Oxford after serving in the Great War (during which he received a number of decorations). At lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer Wolfsheim . Wolfhsheim is a notorious criminal; many believe that he is responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series.

Gatsby mysteriously avoids the Buchanans. Later, Jordan Baker explains the reason for Gatsby's anxiety: he had been in love with Daisy Buchanan when they met in Louisville before the war. Jordan subtly intimates that he is still in love with her, and she with him.

Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a meeting between himself and Daisy. Gatsby has meticulously planned their meeting: he gives Daisy a carefully rehearsed tour of his mansion, and is desperate to exhibit his wealth and possessions. Gatsby is wooden and mannered during this initial meeting; his dearest dreams have been of this moment, and so the actual reunion is bound to disappoint. Despite this, the love between Gatsby and Daisy is revived, and the two begin an affair.

Eventually, Nick learns the true story of Gatsby's past. He was born James Gatz in North Dakota, but had his name legally changed at the age of seventeen. The gold baron Dan Cody served as Gatsby's mentor until his death. Though Gatsby inherited nothing of Cody's fortune, it was from him that Gatsby was first introduced to world of wealth, power, and privilege.

While out horseback riding, Tom Buchanan happens upon Gatsby's mansion. There he meets both Nick and Gatsby, to whom he takes an immediate dislike. To Tom, Gatsby is part of the "new rich," and thus poses a danger to the old order that Tom holds dear. Despite this, he accompanies Daisy to Gatsby's next party; there, he is exceedingly rude and condescending toward Gatsby. Nick realizes that Gatsby wants Daisy to renounce her husband and her marriage; in this way, they can recover the years they have lost since they first parted. Gatsby's great flaw is that his great love of Daisy is a kind of worship, and that he fails to see her flaws. He believes that he can undo the past, and forgets that Daisy's essentially small-minded and cowardly nature was what initially caused their separation.

After his reunion with Daisy, Gatsby ceases to throw his elaborate parties. The only reason he threw such parties was the chance that Daisy (or someone who knew her) might attend. Daisy invites Gatsby, Nick and Jordan to lunch at her house. In an attempt to make Tom jealous, and to exact revenge for his affair, Daisy is highly indiscreet about her relationship with Gatsby. She even tells Gatsby that she loves him while Tom is in earshot.

Although Tom is himself having an affair, he is furious at the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into the city: there, in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Tom and Gatsby have a bitter confrontation. Tom denounces Gatsby for his low birth, and reveals to Daisy that Gatsby's fortune has been made through illegal activities. Daisy's real allegiance is to Tom: when Gatsby begs her to say that she does not love her husband, she refuses him. Tom permits Gatsby to drive Daisy back to East Egg; in this way, he displays his contempt for Gatsby, as well as his faith in his wife's complete subjection.

On the trip back to East Egg, Gatsby allows Daisy to drive in order to calm her ragged nerves. Passing Wilson's garage, Daisy swerves to avoid another car and ends up hitting Myrtle; she is killed instantly. Nick advises Gatsby to leave town until the situation calms. Gatsby, however, refuses to leave: he remains in order to ensure that Daisy is safe. George Wilson, driven nearly mad by the death of his wife, is desperate to find her killer. Tom Buchanan tells him that Gatsby was the driver of the fatal car. Wilson, who has decided that the driver of the car must also have been Myrtle's lover, shoots Gatsby before committing suicide himself.

After the murder, the Buchanans leave town to distance themselves from the violence for which they are responsible. Nick is left to organize Gatsby's funeral, but finds that few people cared for Gatsby. Only Meyer Wolfsheim shows a modicum of grief, and few people attend the funeral. Nick seeks out Gatsby's father, Henry Gatz , and brings him to New York for the funeral. From Henry, Nick learns the full scope of Gatsby's visions of greatness and his dreams of self-improvement.

Thoroughly disgusted with life in New York, Nick decides to return to the Midwest. Before his departure, Nick sees Tom Buchanan once more. Tom tries to elicit Nick's sympathy; he believes that all of his actions were thoroughly justified, and he wants Nick to agree.

Nick muses that Gatsby, alone among the people of his acquaintance, strove to transform his dreams into reality; it is this that makes him "great." Nick also believes, however, that the time for such grand aspirations is over: greed and dishonesty have irrevocably corrupted both the American Dream and the dreams of individual Americans.

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The Great Gatsby Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Great Gatsby is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

The great gatsby

I'm not sure what your question is here.

On what page did Tom slap Myrtle in the beginning of the book?

Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (pg. 30)

What is Gatsby doing when Nick first sees him?

When Nick first sees Gatsby, he is standing alone on his lawn looking out over the water towards the green light that marks where Daisy's home is.

Study Guide for The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is typically considered F. Scott Fitzgerald's greatest novel. The Great Gatsby study guide contains a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

  • About The Great Gatsby
  • The Great Gatsby Video
  • Character List

Essays for The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

  • Foreshadowing Destiny
  • The Eulogy of a Dream
  • Materialism Portrayed By Cars in The Great Gatsby
  • Role of Narration in The Great Gatsby
  • A Great American Dream

Lesson Plan for The Great Gatsby

  • About the Author
  • Study Objectives
  • Common Core Standards
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The Great Gatsby

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Summary and Study Guide

The Great Gatsby is a fiction novel published in 1925 by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Inspired on Fitzgerald’s own experiences during the Jazz Age of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby captures the prosperity and the hedonism of the era through a cast of characters who reside in the fictional Long Island towns of West Egg and East Egg. Despite a cold reaction from critics and audiences upon its release, many modern scholars include The Great Gatsby in the canon of Great American Novels. In 1998, the Modern Library selected The Great Gatsby as the 2nd best English language novel of the 20th century.

Plot Summary

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The narrator, Nick Carraway , moves to Long Island after returning from World War I. Although he is from Minnesota, he feels restless after the war and believes that the East Coast is more interesting and exciting than the Midwest.

After he relocates to the fictional town of “West Egg” and begins his job as a bond salesman, Nick becomes reacquainted with a distant cousin, Daisy , and her husband, Tom Buchanan . Both are from very wealthy families, and Tom is a successful businessman. Nick also meets their friend, Jordan Baker , a professional female golfer. Tom and Daisy live in East Egg, the more prestigious “old money” counterpart to West Egg, where people with “new money” live. Tom also has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson , the wife of a gas station and car dealership owner named George.

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One night, Nick meets Jay Gatsby , his neighbor. Although Gatsby is extremely rich and holds lavish parties at his home, he has few close friends. He invites Nick to one of his parties, and they become acquainted. Jordan approaches Nick to inform him that Gatsby and Daisy were once romantically involved and asks Nick’s assistance in facilitating a reunion.

Gatsby and Daisy begin an affair, which soon becomes apparent to Tom. He despises Gatsby and informs Daisy that Gatsby is a criminal. This is true: Gatsby is not from a family with money but is instead a self-made alcohol smuggler from a modest Midwestern family. After the revelation, Daisy and Gatsby drive away, and Daisy runs over Myrtle by accident.

The two do not stop the car, and later Tom convinces a distraught George that Gatsby drove the car. George pursues Gatsby, murders him, then commits suicide. None of Gatsby’s party guests, nor any of his criminal associates, attend his funeral. Disillusioned, Nick makes up his mind to return to the Midwest.

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Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Great Gatsby is the quintessential Jazz Age novel, capturing a mood and a moment in American history in the 1920s, after the end of the First World War. Rather surprisingly, The Great Gatsby sold no more than 25,000 copies in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lifetime. It has now sold over 25 million copies.

If Fitzgerald had stuck with one of the numerous working titles he considered for the novel, it might have been published as Trimalchio in West Egg (a nod to a comic novel from ancient Rome about a wealthy man who throws lavish parties), Under the Red, White and Blue , or even The High-Bouncing Lover (yes, really).

How did this novel come to be so widely acclaimed and studied, and what does it all mean? Before we proceed to an analysis of Fitzgerald’s novel, here’s a quick summary of the plot.

The Great Gatsby : plot summary

Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, is a young man who has come to New York to work on the stock exchange. He lives on the island of West Egg, where his neighbour is the wealthy Jay Gatsby, who owns a mansion.

One evening, Nick is dining with his neighbours from East Egg, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Tom is having an affair, and goes to answer the phone at one point; Daisy follows him out of the room, and their fellow guest, a woman named Jordan Baker, explains to Nick about Tom’s mistress.

A short while after this, Nick is with Tom when Tom sets up a meeting with his mistress, Myrtle, the wife of a garage mechanic named Wilson. Nick attends a party with Tom and Myrtle; Tom hits his mistress when she mentions Daisy’s name.

In the summer, Gatsby throws a number of lavish parties at his mansion. He meets Jordan Baker again and the two are drawn to each other. Nobody seems to know the real Gatsby, or to be able to offer much reliable information about his identity. Who is he?

Gatsby befriends Nick and drives him to New York. Gatsby explains that he wants Nick to do him a favour: Jordan Baker tells him that Daisy was Gatsby’s first love and he is still in love with her: it’s the whole reason Gatsby moved to West Egg, so he could be near Daisy, even though she’s married to Tom. Gatsby wants Nick to invite both him and Daisy round for tea.

When they have tea together, Gatsby feels hopeful that he can recover his past life with Daisy before she was married. However, he knows that Daisy is unlikely to leave Tom for him. When she expresses a dislike for his noisy parties, he scales down his serving staff at his house and tones down the partying.

When they are all at lunch together, Tom realises that Daisy still loves Gatsby. Tom goads Gatsby as he realises he’s losing his mistress and, now, his wife. While staying together in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Daisy tells Tom that she loves both men.

On their way back home, Gatsby’s car accidentally hits and kills Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s mistress, who has rushed out into the road after her husband found out about her affair. Tom finds her body and is distraught. Nick learns that Daisy, not Gatsby, was driving the car when Myrtle was killed.

Gatsby also tells Nick that he had built himself up from nothing: he was a poor man named James Gatz who made himself rich through the help of a corrupt millionaire named Dan Cody.

The next day, Nick finds Gatsby dead in his own swimming pool: Wilson, after his wife was killed by Gatsby’s car, turned up at Gatsby’s mansion to exact his revenge. Wilson’s body is nearby in the grass. The novel ends with Nick winding up Gatsby’s affairs and estate, before learning that Tom told Wilson where he could find Gatsby so he could take revenge.

The Great Gatsby : analysis

The Great Gatsby is the best-known novel of the Jazz Age, that period in American history that had its heyday in the 1920s. Parties, bootleg cocktails (it’s worth remembering that alcohol was illegal in the US at this time, under Prohibition between 1920 and 1933), and jazz music (of course) all characterised a time when Americans were gradually recovering from the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic (1918-20).

One reason The Great Gatsby continues to invite close analysis is the clever way Fitzgerald casts his novel as neither out-and-out criticism of Jazz Age ‘values’ nor as an unequivocal endorsement of them. Gatsby’s parties may be a mere front, a way of coping with Daisy’s previous rejection of him and of trying to win her back, but Fitzgerald – and his sympathetic narrator, Nick Carraway – do not ridicule Gatsby’s behaviour as wholly shallow or vacuous.

Fitzgerald’s choice to have a first-person narrator, rather than a more detached and impersonal ‘omniscient’ third-person narrator, is also significant. Nick Carraway is closer to Gatsby than an impersonal narrator would be, yet the fact that Nick narrates Gatsby’s story, rather than Gatsby telling his own story, nevertheless provides Nick with some detachment, as well as a degree of innocence and ignorance over Gatsby’s identity and past.

Nick Carraway is both part of Gatsby’s world and yet also, at the same time, an observer from the side-lines, someone who is not rich and extravagant as many in Gatsby’s circle are, yet someone who is ushered into that world by an enthusiastic Jay Gatsby, who sees in Carraway a man in whom he can confide.

Nevertheless, Fitzgerald deftly sets the world of West Egg, with Gatsby’s mock-chateau and swimming pool, against the rather grittier and grimier reality for most Americans at the time. If Gatsby himself symbolises the American dream – he has made himself a success, absurdly wealthy with a huge house and a whole retinue of servants, having started out in poverty – then there are plenty of reminders in The Great Gatsby that ‘the American dream’ remains just that, a dream, for the majority of Americans:

About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.

This is the grey, bleak, industrial reality for millions of Americans: not for them is the world of parties, quasi-enchanted gardens full of cocktails and exotic foods, hydroplanes, and expensive motorcars.

Yet the two worlds are destined to meet on a personal level: the Valley of Ashes (believed to be modelled on Corona dump in Queens, New York, and inspired by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land ) is where Wilson’s garage is located. The dual tragedy of Gatsby’s and Wilson’s deaths at the end of the novel symbolises the meeting of these two worlds.

The fact that Gatsby is innocent of the two crimes or sins which motivate Wilson – his wife’s adultery with Tom and Daisy’s killing of Myrtle with Gatsby’s car – hardly matters: it shows the subtle interconnectedness of these people’s lives, despite their socioeconomic differences.

What’s more, as Ian Ousby notes in his Introduction to Fifty American Novels (Reader’s Guides) , there is more than a touch of vulgarity about Gatsby’s lifestyle: his house is a poor imitation of a genuine French chateau, but he is no aristocrat; his car is ‘ridiculous’; and his very nickname, ‘the Great Gatsby’, makes him sound like a circus entertainer (perhaps a magician above all else, which is apt given the magical and enchanted way Carraway describes the atmosphere and detail at Gatsby’s parties).

And ultimately, Gatsby’s lavish lifestyle fails to deliver happiness to him, too: he doesn’t manage to win Daisy back to him, so at the same time Fitzgerald is not holding up Gatsby’s ‘success’ uncritically to us.

Is Gatsby black? Although he is known for having been played in film adaptations by Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the novel does not state that Gatsby is an African American, the scholar Carlyle V. Thompson has suggested that certain clues or codes in the novel strongly hint at Gatsby being a black American who has had to make his own way in the world, rising from a poor socio-economic background, and not fully accepted by other people in his social circle because of racial discrimination.

Whether we accept or reject this theory, it is an intriguing idea that, although Fitzgerald does not support this theory in the novel, that may have been deliberate: to conceal Gatsby’s blackness but, as it were, hide it in plain sight.

In the last analysis, The Great Gatsby sums up the Jazz Age, but through offering a tragedy, Fitzgerald shows that the American dream is founded on ashes – both the industrial dirt and toil of millions of Americans for whom the dream will never materialise, and the ashes of dead love affairs which Gatsby, for all of his quasi-magical properties, will never bring fully back to life.

10 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby”

I regret the several hours wasted in slogging through this low-prole distraction.

You might want to start with something like Dick and Jane.

One of my favorite novels. I have always loved this book. No matter how may times I read it, more is revealed.

The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels. Thank you for the detailed analysis! I can also add that Fitzgerald includes lots of symbols in the novel. To my mind, one of the most vivid symbols is a giant billboard with the face of Doctor TJ Eckleburg which is towering over the Valley of Ashes. These eyes are watching the dismal grey scene of poverty and decay. I guess the billboard symbolizes the eyes of God staring at the Americans and judging them. In case seomeone is interested in symbols in The Great Gatsby, there is a nice article about it. Here: https://custom-writing.org/blog/symbols-in-the-great-gatsby

While I could imagine and accept a modern film version of Gatsby as black, I really can’t espouse the notion that Fitzgerald had that in mind. If you know anything about American society in the 1920s, you’d know that you didn’t have to be black or of some other minority to be outside the winner’s circle. US society may still have tons of problems accepting that all people are created equal, but back then, they weren’t even thinking about blacks et al very much. They were quite happy to ostracize Italians, Irish, Catholics, etc, without batting an eye.

This is such a widely misunderstood book, by scholars as well as regulars.

Daisy was the victim of love. She would’ve married Jay while he was in the army. Also, Jay’s so-called symbolic “reaching” is nothing more than him trying to understand self love, to attain it, to unravel the “mystery! ” of it. But he never realizes he’s totally in love with himself, which is his biggest issue other than preying on Daisy’s real love.

And Nick ” Carraway” …. Care-a-way, care-a-way… What self-appointed moral man witnesses nakedly two married plotters sceam against a neighbor they like, or any person in serious need of legal, emotion aid, AND DOES NOTHING. Yeah, care a way, Nick, just not your way! And Come On!! who the hell doesn’t judge others….that’s the ENTIRE POINT OF EVERY BOOK AND LIFE.

WHAT preyed on Gatsby preys upon every person everywhere. Influences of life and choices we make because if them. Gatsby’s such an interesting, centralized , beloved character because he represents everyone’s apparent embracement of the childhood notion, ” we can have it all and make our own consequences, and if not, let’s see if I can manipulate time successfully. Gatsby’s us the full human demonstration of self love at all costs and quite deliberately finding a way disguise and masquerade and mutate and thus deny this very fact while simultaneously trying to make it MAGICAL AND MYSTICAL.

ARTISTS, from geniuses to so-called laypeople, are all simple people with very basic emotions. That’s where ALL starts. They are not Gods, nor do they desire misunderstanding. Frankly, they just wanna see if you have any common sense. Once you get passed that, all literature resembles EVERY aspect of life.

A terrific novel and not bad adaptation as a movie by DiCaprio, I thought! While some of the comments on here are a little excessive, there is much to be said for the symbolism in the book. I rather like the fact that ‘West Egg’ and ‘East Egg’ surely hints at questioning who is the ‘good egg’ and who is ‘the bad egg’. The place names are so unusual that this must be deliberate (‘bad egg’ has been around since at least 1855) and we’re left to wonder just what is good and bad here. No character comes out smelling of roses in this story, which – for me – makes the novel utterly compelling.

Well said, Ken. It’s the subtlety of the characterisation which makes it for me – I know a lot of critics and readers praise the prose style, but I think it’s the way Fitzgerald uses Carraway’s narration to reveal the multifaceted (and complex) nature of Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and even himself that is so masterly. I’ve just finished analysing the opening paragraphs of the novel and will post that up soon!

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The Great Gatsby Summary and Analysis

Home » Literature Explained – Literary Synopses and Book Summaries » The Great Gatsby » The Great Gatsby Summary and Analysis

The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald published in the American “Jazz Age” that describes the fruitless and desperate attempts of two wealthy socialites to relive the past.

In the story, the title character of Gatsby tries desperately to finally secure the beautiful yet unattainable Daisy as his partner. Ultimately, his love is doomed for tragedy. The Great Gatsby has become a defining work of American literature from the 20th century, speaking to issues like love, wealth, social status, and reckless hope.

The novel follows narrator Nick Carraway as he observes the desperate Jay Gatsby’s attempts to win over his love Daisy Buchanan. Daisy thwarts Gatsby’s efforts to convince her to leave her husband Tom because Daisy has become comfortable in her lifestyle and is unwilling to let it go, pointing to the hollowness of wealth and status.

The Great Gatsby Literary Elements

the great gatsby chapter 8 summary

Type of Work: Fiction/novel

Genres : Social satire, tragedy, realism, modernism

Published Date: 1925

Setting: New York City and its suburbs West and East Egg (which are fictional stand-ins for neighborhoods of Long Island).

Main Characters: Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby. See full character list .

Protagonist/Antagonist: Protagonist – Jay Gatsby / Antagonist – Tom Buchanan, and (to a lesser extent) Daisy Buchanan. See character descriptions .

Major Thematic Elements: The unattainable “American Dream,” emptiness of wealth, class struggles, love and marriage.

Motifs: Geography (West Egg represents new money and East Egg represents old money), weather.

Major Symbols: The green light, the Valley of Ashes (represents lower class), The eyes on the billboard for Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. See Great Gatsby Major Symbols .

Exposition: Nick becomes wrapped up in Gatsby’s life as he tries to win the affections of his former love Daisy Buchanan. Readers learn that despite all of Gatsby’s wealth and successes, all he really wants is Daisy.

Conflict: Although Daisy and Gatsby have a brief and happy affair, it is quickly learned that Daisy will not leave her husband Tom, even though everyone knows she loves Gatsby.

Plot: linear narrative.

Climax: While Daisy is driving Gatsby’s car, she hits her husband’s lover, Myrtle Wilson, by accident. Myrtle is killed and Gatsby takes the blame, angering everyone including Myrtle’s husband, George.

Literary Significance of The Great Gatsby

great gatsby book notes

Fitzgerald, who, like his characters, rose quickly to fame and wealth through his writing, notice a hollowness to this period of exuberance and although the lifestyles of the rich and famous were appealing to him, he couldn’t help but feel burdened by the moral emptiness and hypocrisy beneath the surface of all the glamor. The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald’s attempts to confront such conflicting feelings about this unique time in United States history.

To this day, The Great Gatsby is widely regarded as one of the most significant works of American literature because of its relevant issues that most people can relate to in some way or another. His skillful use of the modernist and realist styles of writing help to enhance this quality. Modernism grew as a response to rising technology and urbanization that resulted after the Industrial Revolution. Realism came about from a desire on the part of artists to depict the world as it really is rather than through the preferred rose-colored glasses. Human nature, in both modernism and realism, is depicted a complex, flawed, and imperfect. The lessons and insights that come from The Great Gatsby thanks to this style of writing have proven to be timeless even though the story is so loudly a reflection of the social context of the Roaring 20s.

The Great Gatsby Book Summary

Great gatsby chapter summary

Chapter one of the novel introduces the readers to the narrator, Nick Carraway. Not only is he the narrator, but he reveals himself as the supposed author as well. He introduces himself as both highly moral but also tolerant and patient. Nick has just arrived in New York’s Long Island neighborhood West Egg where he is renting a house and connects with Jay Gatsby. Nick sets himself apart from his neighbors because he lacks “pedigree”, but he ultimately is there for a chance to reconnect with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan and see through some business.

Great Gatsby Chapter 2 Summary

In chapter two , the readers are introduced to the Valley of the Ashes which is halfway between West Egg and New York City. This is described as the place where all of New York’s ashes are dumped and is full of the lower income working class. Nick accompanies his cousin’s husband Tom into the Valley of the Ashes to visit his mistress Myrtle at her husband’s garage. Tom takes Nick and Myrtle into the city for an impromptu party. During the party, Myrtle becomes drunk and loud and begins to chant Daisy’s name. This angers Tom and he punches her in the face. Nick decides to leave.

Great Gatsby Chapter 3 Summary

In chapter three , it is revealed that Gatsby has a name for himself, socially speaking, because he throws elaborate parties on the weekend. Many people covet an invitation to his spectacular events. Gatsby extends an invitation to Nick and he attends the party where he hears all kinds of rumors about who Gatsby might be and how he has amassed his wealth. Later during the party, Nick meets Gatsby and finds him sober and quite pleasant to have a conversation with. After the party, Nick walks home and sees a party-goer has crashed his car into a ditch and decides he can’t be bothered to take care of the situation.

Great Gatsby Chapter 4 Summary

Chapter four sees Nick listing out attendees of Gatsby’s parties, wealthy socialites containing America’s most powerful citizens. He recalls a trip to New York City with Gatsby during which they had lunch together and Gatsby tells Nick about his past. He claims to have inherited his parents’ fortune and to be from a Midwestern town and otherwise makes several wild claims which Nick finds to be improbable. On the way to the city, Gatsby speeds and is pulled over. However, the cop lets him off once he realizes who he is. Nick begins to suspect that the origins of Gatsby’s wealth may be related to crime. After lunch, Nick sees Jordan Baker who reveals that she has learned that Gatsby is in love with Daisy and that they were past lovers before Gatsby served in the war. She reveals that Gatsby bought his mansion in West Egg solely to be close to Daisy.

Great Gatsby Chapter 5 Summary

Chapter five sees the action pick up as Gatsby tries to convince Nick to help him in his plan to see Daisy. Nick agrees to have both Daisy and Gatsby over for tea. On the day of the meeting, it is rainy, and Gatsby is consumed by nervousness. At first, the reunion is awkward and Gatsby worries that the meeting was a mistake. Gatsby invites everyone over to his house and Daisy is overwhelmed and becomes emotional once she is there. Gatsby confesses his love and Nick wonders how Daisy could possibly live up to the idea that Gatsby has created of her in his head and leaves them alone.

Great Gatsby Chapter 6 Summary

In chapter six, Nick interrupts the linear flow of the narrative to reveal Gatsby’s real past. Gatsby’s story is a rags-to-riches account of a young man who tasted the luxury of wealth and fought hard to make a future for himself full of money and success. Back in the regular storyline, Nick arrives at Gatsby’s house for a visit and finds him awkwardly chatting with Tom, who is critical of the amount of time Daisy has spent there alone. The following week, Tom attends a Gatsby party with Daisy to keep an eye on her. Tom and Daisy argue and leave and Gatsby seeks solace in his friend Nick, wishing that things could be as they were when he and Daisy were together long ago. Nick suspects that it will all end badly.

Gatsby becomes irritate and preoccupied as Daisy refuses to leave her husband and stops holding his weekend parties which were only ever a means to see Daisy. Nick visits Daisy and Tom in East Egg and finds Gatsby and Jordan at their house as well. Daisy and Gatsby’s behavior and desire to be alone makes Tom furious as he becomes convinced of an affair. Tom suggests that everyone go into the city together. Stopping for gas along the way, Nick, Tom, and Jordan learn that George Wilson has learned of his wife’s affair but does not know who her lover is. Nick notices that Tom and George are in the same predicament, ironically.

In the city, tensions rise as Tom seeks to provoke Gatsby. Tom sends Daisy and Gatsby back to Long Island in Gatsby’s car and the rest follow in Tom’s car. Nick realizes on the drive that he has forgotten in all the drama that it is his thirtieth birthday. Later, the group runs into a horrible scene along the highway where they learn that Myrtle has been struck by a car and has died. However, it was a hit and run and all anyone knows is that it was a yellow car, like Gatsby’s. Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy was driving the car when it hit Myrtle but that he intends to take the blame.

The next day, Tom tries to convince Gatsby to forget about Daisy as she is starting to ruin his life. Gatsby feels defeated and admits that he has loved her for so long that he does not know how to do anything else. The entire life he built was to prove that he could be worthy of her love. Tom leaves and later George Wilson, consumed by rage, shows up at Gatsby’s house. Gatsby is floating in the pool and Wilson shoots and kills Gatsby and then himself. Nick finds Gatsby’s body back in West Egg and imagines what Gatsby’s final thoughts might have been.

Great Gatsby Chapter 9 Summary

In the final chapter , Nick is writing two years after Gatsby’s death. He describes the funeral and the wild gossip that resulted. Tom and Daisy have moved away with no forwarding address and most of Gatsby’s friends disappeared after his death so Gatsby’s funeral did not wind up being as large as Nick had hoped.

Nick is entirely fed up with the events of the summer and moves back home after Gatsby’s death to the Midwest. Before leaving, Nick runs into Tom in New York City. Tom admits that he was the one who told George Wilson that Gatsby killed his wife. He suffered greatly for this in the aftermath having lost Myrtle but he maintains that Gatsby deserved to die. Nick decides that the Buchanans are cold and uncaring people and their money shields them from facing any consequences.

'The Great Gatsby' Plot Summary

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the great gatsby summary of book

  • M.F.A, Dramatic Writing, Arizona State University
  • B.A., English Literature, Arizona State University
  • B.A., Political Science, Arizona State University

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel "The Great Gatsby" takes place among the New York elite during the Roaring Twenties. The story, told from the perspective of a naïve young narrator, focuses on a mysterious millionaire, the woman he loves, and the self-absorbed denizens of their wealthy neighborhood.

Nick Arrives in West Egg

Nick Carraway, a World War I veteran and recent Yale graduate from the Midwest, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to work as a bond salesman. He rents a small home on Long Island in the neighborhood of West Egg, which is largely populated by wealthy, self-made men. Nick is intrigued by Jay Gatsby, who lives in the lavish mansion next door. Gatsby is a mysterious recluse who throws massive parties but never makes an appearance at any of them. Across the bay, a distance away but directly across from Gatsby’s dock, there is a green light that seems to draw Gatsby’s attention.

After settling in, Nick drives to the other side of the bay to the mirroring neighborhood of East Egg, where his flapper cousin Daisy Buchanan lives. Daisy is married to the arrogant and mean-spirited Tom Buchanan, a former college classmate of Nick's. Soon, Nick discovers that Daisy's dock is the source of the green light. Daisy introduces Nick to her friend Jordan, a professional golfer who gives Nick a crash course in their social circle.

Nick also learns that Tom is unfaithful to Daisy. Tom has a mistress named Myrtle Wilson who lives in the “valley of ashes," the stretch of land between West Egg and New York City, where poor workers live surrounded by industrial waste. Despite this new knowledge, Nick goes with Tom to New York City, where they attend a party at the apartment Tom stays in with Myrtle for their assignations. The party is hedonistic and crass, and the evening quickly devolves into a violent fight between Tom and Myrtle. After Myrtle repeatedly brings up Daisy , Tom's barely-concealed anger bubbles up and he hits Myrtle until he breaks her nose.

Nick Meets Gatsby

Nick finds himself at one of Gatsby’s parties, where he runs into Jordan and finally meets Gatsby himself. Both Jordan and Nick are taken aback at how young Gatsby is. Nick is particularly surprised to realize that he and Gatsby served in the same division during the war. This shared history seems to generate unusual friendliness in Gatsby towards Nick.

Jordan tells Nick what she knows of Gatsby’s past. She explains that, when Gatsby was a young military officer preparing to fight in Europe, Daisy was part of a group of debutantes doing volunteer work alongside the soldiers. The duo shared a flirtation, Gatsby fell in love, and Daisy promised to wait for him to return from the war. However, their different social backgrounds — Gatsby from humble origins, Daisy from a wealthy family — precluded a relationship, and Daisy ultimately met and married Tom.

Jordan goes on to explain that ever since returning from the war and making a fortune, Gatsby has been throwing lavish parties in hopes of attracting Daisy's attention from across the bay. So far, however, his plan has not worked and he has been relegated to gazing at the green light on her dock.

Over time, Nick begins dating Jordan. Gatsby and Nick strike up a friendship. Despite their different life experiences and world views, Gatsby and Nick share an optimism that borders on naïveté. Since Nick is Daisy’s cousin, Gatsby uses their connection as a cover to arrange a meeting for himself with Daisy. Nick willingly agrees to the scheme and invites Daisy over to his house for tea but doesn’t tell her that Gatsby will be there.

Gatsby and Daisy's Affair Unravels

The reunion between Gatsby and Daisy is awkward and uncomfortable at first but over the course of the summer, they begin a full-fledged affair. Gatsby confides in Nick that he wants Daisy to leave Tom for him. When Nick reminds him that they can't recreate their past, Gatsby insists that they can — and that money is the key.

Daisy and Gatsby are successful in keeping the affair under wraps for a while. One day, Daisy accidentally speaks about Gatsby in front of Tom, who immediately deduces that his wife is having an affair and flies into a rage.

Tom uses Daisy as a weapon, telling Gatsby that he could never understand the kind of history that Tom has with Daisy. He also reveals the truth of how James Gatz, a poor officer, became Jay Gatsby, the millionaire: bootlegging alcohol and possibly other illegal dealings. Tom forces Daisy to make a choice then and there: him or Gatsby. Daisy insists that she has loved both men but chooses to remain in her stable position married to Tom. She drives Gatsby back to Long Island in Gatsby’s car, while Tom drives with Nick and Jordan.

This proves to be a fatal mistake. Myrtle, who recently had a fight with Tom, sees them driving by and runs out in front of Gatsby’s car in an attempt to catch Tom’s attention and reconcile with him. Daisy doesn’t stop in time and hits Myrtle, killing her. A panicked and distraught Daisy flees the scene. Gatsby reassures her that he will take the blame for the accident. When Nick arrives and gets the details, he goes to check on Daisy. He finds Daisy and Tom calmly eating dinner together, apparently reconciled.

Tragedy Finally Strikes

Nick returns to check on Gatsby, who mournfully tells him about his first, long-ago courtship of Daisy. Nick suggests that Gatsby leave the area alone but Gatsby refuses. He says goodbye to Nick, who heads to work for the day.

Myrtle’s suspicious husband George confronts Tom. George tells Tom that he believes the yellow car that killed Myrtle belonged to Myrtle’s lover. He explains that he has long suspected that Myrtle was unfaithful but never figured out who she was having an affair with. Tom informs George that the yellow car belongs to Gatsby and gives him Gatsby’s address so that George can get his revenge. George goes to Gatsby’s home, shoots Gatsby, and kills himself. Nick organizes Gatsby’s funeral. Only three people attend: Nick, an anonymous partygoer, and Gatsby’s estranged father, who expresses pride in his late son’s achievements.

Later, Nick runs into Tom, who openly admits to sending George Wilson to Gatsby. Tom says that Gatsby deserved to die. Tom expresses more unhappiness about losing his apartment in the city than all the death and trauma he has recently witnessed. Having come face-to-face with the careless people of West Egg, Nick feels that the true “dreamers” have died along with Gatsby. He moves away and returns to the Midwest.

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The Great Gatsby Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: The Great Gatsby is an American classic following Jay Gatsby’s quest to win back his long-lost love by faking a successful life,  depicting the struggles around love, relationships, societal standing, and consumerism of people in the “roaring” 1920s.

Favorite quote from the author:

The Great Gatsby Summary

When I was in 12th grade, we each had to pick a classic of American literature, read it, and then present its ideas to the class. I chose The Great Gatsby . Published in 1925 by F. Scott Fitzgerald and partially based on his own life, the book deals with human struggles in the Roaring ’20s , a decade of great economic growth and prosperity in the US.

Narrator Nick Carraway moves to New York from the Midwest and joins the new rich . He ends up next to Jay Gatsby and his huge mansion, where Gatsby throws lavish parties on a nightly basis. Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan, who lives close by, is married to a rich but unloving man, who cheats on her with the wife of a lowly gas station worker. Soon, Nick discovers there’s more to Gatsby than meets the eye, especially when it comes to Daisy…

Here are 3 lessons from the 3 main characters of the book, Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby:

  • It is normal to have moral conflicts, and it is better to be honest about it than to hide it.
  • While money can improve our lives greatly, it can’t help us solve our most important problems.
  • Staying true to yourself isn’t always convenient, but at least it’ll help you find inner peace.

Let’s explore the plot of one of the greatest novels of all time and learn some life lessons along the way!

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Lesson 1: We are all morally conflicted, and it’s okay to be honest about those conflicts.

Throughout the book, Nick seems like an objective, reserved, down-to-earth observer and, for the most part, he is. However, he, too, has his struggles.

Nick is somewhat seduced by the crazy, opulent lifestyle Gatsby and his cousin live. He gets drunk at one of Gatsby’s parties and fully buys into his hopeful, ever-optimistic demeanor. Later, he starts dating Jordan Baker, a successful but poor-mannered golfer and socialite. Nick even facilitates the secret meeting where Gatsby and Daisy rekindle their love and begin an affair.

Nick prides himself on being “a simple man” and “not judging others,” and the more time he spends amid rich but despicable people, the better he sees through them. But he is not flawless, and he never really addresses his own shortcomings. By the end of the book, Nick moves back Midwest, having had enough of rich people’s drama, but he’ll still need a fair amount of introspection to truly learn his lesson.

None of us are saints. We will all face ethical conundrums at one point or another. It’s okay to not be perfect, but it’s important to be honest about these dilemmas when they occur — if only to ourselves. Don’t try to be a superhero. Sooner or later, you’ll crack under the pressure.

Lesson 2: Money can solve many problems — but not the most important ones in life. 

As he spends time with the people around him, Nick discovers their secrets. One is that Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, has a mistress named Myrtle, whom he even rents an apartment for in the city. Tom also has anger and drinking issues.

Daisy, of course, knows all of this, and is deeply unhappy in her marriage, not least because she secretly loves Gatsby. Gatsby, in turn, made all his money illegally — from smuggling alcohol — and only pretends to be smart and rich so he can get back together with Daisy.

All of the characters in the book have food, shelter, and plenty of time and money to spare, yet none of them are happy — because the hard work that self-awareness and good relationships require is not something money can do for us.

Daisy most represents this issue. When confronted by Tom and Gatsby to choose either one or the other, she can’t make up her mind. Ultimately, however, she clings to Tom and his (legally made) money, despite him not respecting, let alone loving her.

Some people go to great lengths to get rich but then find they still feel empty inside. Knowing yourself takes time. So does forming great relationships. Money can get you warm and fed and distracted, but it can’t put meaning into your life. That’s something only you can do through reflection, kindness, and self-actualization .

Lesson 3: Being yourself won’t get you everything you want, but it will allow you to be at peace.

After Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby, Daisy drives Gatsby’s car and accidentally hits and kills Myrtle. Gatsby covers for Daisy, and even when Nick tells him to give up the ruse and flee, he won’t change his mind.

Tom discovers that it was Gatsby’s car at the murder scene and deviously tells George, Myrtle’s husband. Believing Gatsby was also Myrtle’s lover, George breaks in to Gatsby’s house and shoots him in his pool before turning his gun on himself. When Nick finds out Tom ratted on Gatsby, he feels disgusted with all the backstabbing and moves back to the Midwest.

André Gide once wrote that “it is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not,” and it is this truth that Gatsby just can’t wrap his head around that marks his demise.

Instead of being honest about who he is and making the best with what he has, Gatsby erects this monumental façade of a fake life — starting with his name and ending with his wealth — all so he can chase a past that no longer exists: Daisy’s love. If Gatsby had been honest about his humble beginnings, he might never even have built a relationship with Daisy, but he also wouldn’t have been shot in his pool for being mistaken for someone else (namely Tom). Oh, the irony.

Being yourself isn’t always convenient. You’ll rub some people the wrong way. You won’t always get what you want. However, you’ll also naturally attract the right people into your life. Most folks won’t “hate you for what you are.” The ones who don’t like you will just avoid you, and other people will appear.

As long as you live authentically, however, you’ll always sleep peacefully at night — and that’s worth more than all the money and other people’s love in the world.

The Great Gatsby Review

This is an emotional one for me. Looking back through my presentation notes from 2009, I think The Great Gatsby is the first book I summarized. It’s the kind of book that gets better with time. The more you understand its motives and themes, the more you’ll get out of it. I highly recommend reading it at least once.

Who would I recommend our The Great Gatsby summary to?

The 16-year-old high schooler who doesn’t see the point of reading Gatsby in her English class, the 35-year-old corporate employee who, after a few years of working, feels disillusioned with their career, and anyone who’s trying really hard to be someone else.

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Niklas Göke

Niklas Göke is an author and writer whose work has attracted tens of millions of readers to date. He is also the founder and CEO of Four Minute Books, a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries teaching readers 3 valuable lessons in just 4 minutes each. Born and raised in Germany, Nik also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration & Engineering from KIT Karlsruhe and a Master’s Degree in Management & Technology from the Technical University of Munich. He lives in Munich and enjoys a great slice of salami pizza almost as much as reading — or writing — the next book — or book summary, of course!

*Four Minute Books participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon. We also participate in other affiliate programs, such as Blinkist, MindValley, Audible, Audiobooks, Reading.FM, and others. Our referral links allow us to earn commissions (at no extra cost to you) and keep the site running. Thank you for your support.

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Screen Rant

Star wars is about to reveal the definitive history of the galactic empire.

The Galactic Empire is Star Wars' biggest villain, and a new book is about to delve deeper into its history, explaining its rise and fall.

  • Dive deep into the dark times with Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire from an in-universe historian's perspective.
  • Uncover the full history of the Empire through an analysis of its day-to-day operations and regime by Captain Beaumont Kin.
  • This unique book offers a detailed look at the Empire like never before, providing a fresh perspective on the Star Wars universe.

Lucasfilm has officially announced a new Star Wars book that will finally explore the history, and inner workings, of the Galactic Empire. Established in the aftermath of Order 66 , the Galactic Empire ruled the entire galaxy for 19 years. As powerful and all-pervasive as the Empire may be, though, its perspective is seldom explored - with most stories focusing on the Rebel Alliance (as the heroes of the franchise).

Qui-Gon Jinn, Luke Skywalker, and Bo-Katan Kryze

How To Watch Star Wars Movies In Order

Lucasfilm has officially confirmed the release of Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by historian Chris Kempshall. This will be an in-universe history of the Empire , supposedly told by historian Beaumont Kin (played by Dominic Monaghan in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ). According to Kempshall, this book " will explore the dark times from stories across mediums, including movies, games, series, books, and comics, with chapters covering every aspect of the Emperor's regime. " Writing on Twitter, Chris Kempshall promised " deep new examinations, investigations, and analysis of the Galactic Empire. "

This Should Be A Unique Look At The Empire

Star Wars The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire cover

Captain Beaumont Kin was a historian who specialized in understanding the dark side; he was the only one to propose theories for Palpatine's resurrection in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . This will no doubt ensure he has a unique voice in analyzing and understanding the Empire - because he will know what the Sith aimed to achieve . Kempshall himself has always been fascinated by the Empire as a fan, explaining:

"I've always found the Empire utterly fascinating, both as a fan and then as a historian. Working on Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy helped me think really long and hard about what in-universe historians might say about the Empire, but it only gave me a taste. I - much like Anakin - wanted more!"

There have been previous Imperial handbooks, but nothing on this kind of scale. It will be thrilling to get a whole new perspective on Star Wars ' greatest villains, and to learn just what evils Palpatine subjected the galaxy to. The Rise & Fall of the Galactic Empire will release on July 9, 2024, and it will surely be a must-read.

Pre-order The Rise & Fall of the Galactic Empire from Amazon

Sources: StarWars.com and Chris Kempshall

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The Great Gatsby

F. scott fitzgerald, everything you need for every book you read..

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18 Movie Adaptations That Outdid the Books

Posted: January 10, 2024 | Last updated: January 10, 2024

<p><span>Being labeled a “square” was a notable insult in the ’60s, implying a rigid, conventional lifestyle that clashed with the era’s revolutionary ethos. With society’s increasing acceptance of different lifestyles and perspectives, the term has been relegated to old movies and nostalgic conversations.</span></p>

Remember those moments when you read an amazing book, and then Hollywood took a swing at it? And against all odds, they didn’t mess it up? Prepare to be delighted and slightly annoyed because these adaptations might make you wonder why you even bothered with the original book!

<p><span> Amid cheerful wedding celebrations, an air of drama surrounds Don Corleone’s study. As visitors pay their respects and seek favors, the dichotomy between joy and business, love and power, becomes clear. The Godfather’s demeanor, the subtle dialogues, and the shadowy interiors foreshadow a tale where family bonds are both a strength and a vulnerability.</span></p>

The Godfather – An Offer They Couldn’t Refuse

Mario Puzo’s sprawling narrative of the Corleone mafia clan was transformed beautifully by Francis Ford Coppola into a cinematic classic. Marlon Brando’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Vito Corleone still echoes in the halls of film history. Those dramatic, tense-filled scenes and the memorable dialogue? It all seemed to leap from the book straight to celluloid magic—hats off to Coppola.

<p><span> The magic of Hogwarts enchanted us all. Yet, in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” Daniel Radcliffe’s portrayal of Harry felt a tad inexperienced. It’s clear he was finding his footing. Thankfully, as the series progressed, so did his skills, making the Wizarding World a cherished saga.</span></p>

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The first step into the magical realm of Hogwarts and the larger wizarding world was brilliantly captured in the film. We watched as young Harry learned about his legacy and faced the dark forces that haunted his past. The Quidditch matches, the feasts, and the adventure – they’re so accurately replicated that it feels like the owls from the film are just waiting to deliver our letters!

<p><span> From the sleepy streets of Maycomb to the racial injustices lurking underneath, Harper Lee’s iconic tale of courage and morality was brilliantly adapted for the screen. Gregory Peck’s embodiment of the noble Atticus Finch won hearts and awards alike. When we think of Atticus, we see Peck, and that’s Hollywood done right!</span></p>

To Kill a Mockingbird

From the sleepy streets of Maycomb to the racial injustices lurking underneath, Harper Lee’s iconic tale of courage and morality was brilliantly adapted for the screen. Gregory Peck’s embodiment of the noble Atticus Finch won hearts and awards alike. When we think of Atticus, we see Peck, and that’s Hollywood done right!

<p><span> Stephen King’s poignant tale of hope and redemption inside the grim walls of Shawshank Prison translated into a cinematic masterpiece. With Tim Robbins as the resilient Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman narrating the tale as Red, the movie goes deep into themes of friendship, perseverance, and finding freedom even in captivity.</span></p>

The Shawshank Redemption

Stephen King’s poignant tale of hope and redemption inside the grim walls of Shawshank Prison translated into a cinematic masterpiece. With Tim Robbins as the resilient Andy Dufresne and Morgan Freeman narrating the tale as Red, the movie goes deep into themes of friendship, perseverance, and finding freedom even in captivity.

<p><span> The timeless dance of misunderstandings and romance from Jane Austen’s novel was exquisitely brought to life on screen. Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen’s palpable chemistry made the rainy proposal scene unforgettable. With every glance and every dialogue, the complex emotions of the era’s romance shined brighter than ever.</span></p>

Pride and Prejudice

The timeless dance of misunderstandings and romance from Jane Austen’s novel was exquisitely brought to life on screen. Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen’s palpable chemistry made the rainy proposal scene unforgettable. With every glance and every dialogue, the complex emotions of the era’s romance shined brighter than ever.

<p><span> Roaring dinosaurs stole the show in “Jurassic Park.” But some human performances? Not as dino-mite. Laura Dern and Sam Neill were solid as Dr. Ellie Sattler and Dr. Alan Grant. However, the kids, Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) had moments of overacting that felt a tad forced. Still, that T-Rex scene is iconic!</span></p>

Jurassic Park Roars to Life

Michael Crichton’s thrilling tale of a dinosaur theme park gone awry was electrifyingly brought to life by Steven Spielberg. The ground-shaking thuds of the T-Rex’s steps, the eerie stillness of the water glass, and the breathtaking visuals of the dinosaurs were something the books could only let us imagine. Spielberg? He made us live it.

<p><span> Suzanne Collins painted a world of stark contrasts, from the Capitol’s luxury to the districts’ grim reality. The film adaptation brought this dichotomy to life, with Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss leading the charge. Every arrow shot, and every act of defiance made us root for the girl on fire even more.</span></p>

The Hunger Games Ignites

Suzanne Collins painted a world of stark contrasts, from the Capitol’s luxury to the districts’ grim reality. The film adaptation brought this dichotomy to life, with Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss leading the charge. Every arrow shot and every act of defiance made us root for the girl on fire even more.

<p><span> Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of Stephen King’s chilling novel is a masterclass in suspense. The eerie, sprawling corridors of the Overlook Hotel, Jack Nicholson’s descent into madness, and those unsettling twins – it’s a journey into the unknown. The whole story is made all the more compelling on the big screen!</span></p>

The Shining

Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of Stephen King’s chilling novel is a masterclass in suspense. The eerie, sprawling corridors of the Overlook Hotel, Jack Nicholson’s descent into madness, and those unsettling twins – it’s a journey into the unknown. The whole story is made all the more compelling on the big screen!

<p><span> C.S. Lewis’s enchanting world, where animals talk, and magic is real, was wonderfully recreated in the film. From the initial discovery of Narnia in the wardrobe to the climactic battle, every moment felt like a childhood dream – albeit one with a side of White Witch-induced nightmares. It’s just a shame that the following films weren’t as good!</span></p>

Narnia – Where Magic Meets Reality

C.S. Lewis’s enchanting world, where animals talk and magic is real, was wonderfully recreated in the film. From the initial discovery of Narnia in the wardrobe to the climactic battle, every moment felt like a childhood dream – albeit one with a side of White Witch-induced nightmares. It’s just a shame that the following films weren’t as good!

<p><span> Thomas Harris’s dark world of psychological horror found a fitting echo in the film adaptation. Clarice Starling’s (Jodie Foster) intense interactions with the chillingly brilliant Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) are edge-of-the-seat experiences. The sinister atmosphere and the cat-and-mouse chase have made it a genre-defining classic. </span></p>

The Silence of the Lambs

Thomas Harris’s dark world of psychological horror found a fitting echo in the film adaptation. Clarice Starling’s (Jodie Foster) intense interactions with the chillingly brilliant Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) are edge-of-the-seat experiences. The sinister atmosphere and the cat-and-mouse chase have made it a genre-defining classic. 

<p><span> Tolkien poured intricate details into Middle-earth, from elf songs to hobbit feasts. And the movie? Oh boy, did it deliver! Epic battles, breathtaking landscapes, and even the tiniest trinket (yes, the ring) glittered as the central piece. All while Frodo and his gang embarked on an epic shoeless journey, Hollywood style!</span></p>

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Tolkien poured intricate details into Middle-earth, from elf songs to hobbit feasts. And the movie? Oh boy, did it deliver! Epic battles, breathtaking landscapes, and even the tiniest trinket (yes, the ring) glittered as the central piece. All while Frodo and his gang embarked on an epic shoeless journey, Hollywood style!

<p><span> Ken Kesey’s depiction of a mental institution did more than tell the story of its inmates—it boldly critiqued the establishment and its brutal practices. With its stark visuals and chilling soundtrack, the film adaptation magnified these themes even more. And as for Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy? His wild-eyed defiance made audiences cheer for a rogue.</span></p>

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Ken Kesey’s depiction of a mental institution did more than tell the story of its inmates—it boldly critiqued the establishment and its brutal practices. The film adaptation magnified these themes even more with its stark visuals and chilling soundtrack. And as for Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy? His wild-eyed defiance made audiences cheer for a rogue.

<p><span> Fitzgerald captured the very essence of the Roaring Twenties. The movie adaptation, with its vibrant hues, sparkling costumes, and a modern soundtrack twist, brought the Jazz Age back to life. With his suave charm and haunted eyes, DiCaprio embodied Gatsby’s desperate quest for love and acceptance, making viewers yearn for moonlit dances even as tragedy loomed.</span></p>

The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald captured the very essence of the Roaring Twenties. The movie adaptation, with its vibrant hues, sparkling costumes, and a modern soundtrack twist, brought the Jazz Age back to life. With his suave charm and haunted eyes, DiCaprio embodied Gatsby’s desperate quest for love and acceptance, making viewers yearn for moonlit dances even as tragedy loomed.

<p><span> Chuck Palahniuk’s novel wasn’t just about fistfights – it was a commentary on consumer culture and male disenchantment. Translating this to screen, the film enveloped viewers in its murky world of secret meetings and societal revolt. Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden showcased the lengths to which modern boredom can push someone. And yes, we all remember that first rule, don’t we?</span></p>

Dark Secrets in Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk’s novel wasn’t just about fistfights – it was a commentary on consumer culture and male disenchantment. Translating this to screen, the film enveloped viewers in its murky world of secret meetings and societal revolt. Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden showcased the lengths to which modern boredom can push someone. And yes, we all remember that first rule, don’t we?

<p><span> Burgess’s unsettling vision of a future London, overrun by youth gangs and violent crime, made readers shudder. But Kubrick’s film adaptation? It was a real experience. The stark contrast of the droogs’ white outfits, the unnerving use of classical music during acts of violence, and Malcolm McDowell’s chilling portrayal of Alex kept viewers on edge long after the credits rolled.</span></p>

A Clockwork Orange

Burgess’s unsettling vision of a future London, overrun by youth gangs and violent crime, made readers shudder. But Kubrick’s film adaptation? It was a real experience. The stark contrast of the droogs’ white outfits, the unnerving use of classical music during acts of violence, and Malcolm McDowell’s chilling portrayal of Alex kept viewers on edge long after the credits rolled.

<p><span> Against the American Civil War backdrop, Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler’s tumultuous relationship faces trials and tribulations. Though Scarlett’s spirit is indomitable, Rhett’s patience wanes. His final words, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” signify the end of their fiery romance, leaving Scarlett in despair.</span></p>

Gone With the Wind

Margaret Mitchell’s sweeping epic of the South provided a panoramic view of a changing society. With its technicolor splendor, the film adaptation brought the grandeur and devastation of the Civil War era to life . With her fiery spirit and resilience, Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara captured Southern pride’s essence, making that twirling silhouette against the fiery sky unforgettable.

<p><span> Alice Walker’s novel was a poignant tale of African American women’s lives in the early 20th century. Spielberg’s masterful direction wove the tale into a cinematic masterpiece. Led by Whoopi Goldberg’s heartrending portrayal of Celie, the film captured its characters’ pain, joy, and enduring spirit, turning every scene into a poetic frame.</span></p>

The Color Purple – Resilience and Hope

Alice Walker’s novel was a poignant tale of African American women’s lives in the early 20th century. Spielberg’s masterful direction wove the tale into a cinematic masterpiece. Led by Whoopi Goldberg’s heartrending portrayal of Celie, the film captured its characters’ pain, joy, and enduring spirit, turning every scene into a poetic frame.

<p><span> Stephen King might be the king of horror, but he explored humanity’s deepest emotions in The Green Mile. With its deliberate pacing and soulful performances, the movie adaptation took viewers on a journey through death row’s grim corridors, only to find unexpected miracles. Tom Hanks’s stoic warden created a blend of melancholy and wonder that lingered long after.</span></p>

The Green Miles

Stephen King might be the king of horror, but he explored humanity’s deepest emotions in The Green Mile. With its deliberate pacing and soulful performances, the movie adaptation took viewers on a journey through death row’s grim corridors, only to find unexpected miracles. Tom Hanks’s stoic warden created a blend of melancholy and wonder that lingered long after.

<p><span>This guy breaks the mold in a world that often asks men to hide their feelings. He’s not afraid to shed a tear during a heartwarming movie or express his fears and dreams openly. He’s genuine in his emotions, making those around him feel secure in expressing theirs. Women find this refreshing, creating a space where vulnerability is accepted and celebrated.</span></p>

Hollywood’s Biggest Rip-Offs: 18 Epic Movie Flops That’ll Make You Demand a Refund

Ah, the world of cinema – the glitz, the glamour, the… duds? Occasionally, we get hyped up for a movie, ready to be swept off our feet, but instead, we’re left scratching our heads. Popcorn, anyone? Let’s take a look at film history’s biggest letdowns.

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IMAGES

  1. The Great Gatsby: Short Summary with Pictures + Timeline

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  2. The Great Gatsby Complete Summary

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  3. The Great Gatsby Summary and Analysis (like SparkNotes)

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  4. The Great Gatsby Free Summary by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  1. The Great Gatsby: Full Book Summary

    Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy.

  2. The Great Gatsby

    Chapter 1 Yale graduate Nick Caraway returns from World War I and becomes a bond salesman, moving to a Long Island suburb called West Egg and renting a small house beside a mansion owned by a man named Jay Gatsby. West Egg is full of newly rich people, but East Egg—across the bay—is where the "old rich" live.

  3. The Great Gatsby

    The Great Gatsby is F. Scott Fitzgerald's third novel. It was published in 1925. Set in Jazz Age New York, it tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth. Commercially unsuccessful upon publication, the book is now considered a classic of American fiction.

  4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Plot Summary

    Chapter 1 Literary devices: Genre Mood Setting Style Tone View all In the summer of 1922, Nick Carraway moves from Minnesota to work as a bond salesman in New York. Nick rents a house in West Egg, a suburb of New York on Long Island full of the "new rich" who have made their fortunes too recently to have built strong social connections.

  5. The Great Gatsby: Study Guide

    Overview The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in 1925 during the Roaring Twenties, a period of economic prosperity and social change in the United States. Set in the summer of 1922, the novel unfolds in the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island and follows the life of Nick Carraway.

  6. Best Summary and Analysis: The Great Gatsby

    Tom takes Nick to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is married to George Wilson, who runs a gas station in a gross and dirty neighborhood in Queens. Tom, Nick, and Myrtle go to Manhattan, where she hosts a small party that ends with Tom punching her in the face.

  7. The Great Gatsby Summary

    By F. Scott Fitzgerald 'The Great Gatsby' is generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece. It represents a cultural period in the United States that's now referred to as the Jazz Age. Written by Emma Baldwin B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

  8. The Great Gatsby

    Set on the prosperous Long Island of 1922, The Great Gatsby provides a critical social history of Prohibition-era America during the Jazz Age.

  9. The Great Gatsby Summary

    Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom. At the Buchanans's, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful young woman with a cold, cynical manner. The two later become romantically involved.

  10. The Great Gatsby Summary and Study Guide

    Inspired on Fitzgerald's own experiences during the Jazz Age of the 1920s, The Great Gatsby captures the prosperity and the hedonism of the era through a cast of characters who reside in the fictional Long Island towns of West Egg and East Egg.

  11. A Summary and Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

    The Great Gatsby is the quintessential Jazz Age novel, capturing a mood and a moment in American history in the 1920s, after the end of the First World War. Rather surprisingly, The Great Gatsby sold no more than 25,000 copies in F. Scott Fitzgerald's lifetime. It has now sold over 25 million copies. If Fitzgerald had stuck with one of the ...

  12. A brief overview of The Great Gatsby

    novel Summary Novel, an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an F. Scott Fitzgerald Summary

  13. The Great Gatsby Summary and Analysis

    The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald published in the American "Jazz Age" that describes the fruitless and desperate attempts of two wealthy socialites to relive the past. In the story, the title character of Gatsby tries desperately to finally secure the beautiful yet unattainable Daisy as his partner.

  14. The Great Gatsby Summary

    Amanda Prahl Updated on February 03, 2020 F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" takes place among the New York elite during the Roaring Twenties. The story, told from the perspective of a naïve young narrator, focuses on a mysterious millionaire, the woman he loves, and the self-absorbed denizens of their wealthy neighborhood.

  15. The Great Gatsby Study Guide

    Intro Plot Summary & Analysis Themes Quotes Characters Symbols Lit Devices Quizzes Theme Viz Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Great Gatsby makes teaching easy. Everything you need for every book you read. "Sooo much more helpful than SparkNotes. The way the content is organized

  16. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career.This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the ...

  17. The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

    Hypocrisy and rot are at the heart of old money in the 1920s boom. Upon returning from dinner, Nick sees Jay Gatsby standing on his lawn and gazing out across Long Island sound. Nick considers calling out to Gatsby, but stops himself when he sees Gatsby extend his arms out toward the far side of the water.

  18. The Great Gatsby Summary

    1-Sentence-Summary: The Great Gatsby is an American classic following Jay Gatsby's quest to win back his long-lost love by faking a successful life, depicting the struggles around love, relationships, societal standing, and consumerism of people in the "roaring" 1920s. Read in: 4 minutes Favorite quote from the author:

  19. The Great Gatsby Chapter Summaries

    Chapter. Summary. Chapter 1. Twenty-nine-year-old Nick Carraway reflects on the experiences of his recent past. After graduating from Yale and servin... Read More. Chapter 2. Chapter 2 opens with a description of the "valley of ashes," a dismal location between the Eggs and New York City. The v...

  20. The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

    The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes The Great Gatsby Study Guide Motifs Protagonist Setting Genre Allusions Style Point of View Tone Foreshadowing Metaphors & Similes Questions & Answers Why is Nick the narrator of the story? Why does Daisy cry over Gatsby's shirts? Why is Myrtle attracted to Tom?

  21. The 10 Best F. Scott Fitzgerald Movie Adaptations, Ranked

    1949's adaptation of The Great Gatsby is not exactly the best take on the beloved tale, but it is arguably not Fitzgerald's worst movie adaptation, either. The story follows a young Midwesterner ...

  22. Star Wars Is About To Reveal The Definitive History Of The Galactic Empire

    An upcoming Star Wars book will unveil the full history of the Galactic Empire.Without the Empire to fight against, the events of A New Hope would never have happened. It is the big bad of the Star Wars universe. Yet, shockingly little is known about its day-to-day operations.While shows such as Andor and books like the Thrawn (2017) trilogy have shown more of the Empire, the majority of the ...

  23. The Great Gatsby Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

    These haunting, unblinking eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg watch over everything in the Valley of Ashes. The "Valley of Ashes" represents the people left behind in the Roaring Twenties. The dust recalls Nick's reference to the "foul dust" that corrupted Gatsby. Eckleburg's eyes witness the bleakness, and represent the past that the 1920s wasted.

  24. 10 Movies That Are Better If You Read the Book First

    The Great Gatsby Yet another story adapted to multiple screen iterations is F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Greatest Gatsby with the 1974 version by Jack Clayton and the 2013 release ...

  25. 18 Movie Adaptations That Outdid the Books

    The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald captured the very essence of the Roaring Twenties. The movie adaptation, with its vibrant hues, sparkling costumes, and a modern soundtrack twist, brought the Jazz Age ...

  26. The Use of Force: Full Story Summary

    The implication that, if they don't help the doctor examine the girl's throat, they will put her at great risk induces the mother to escalate her language. She threatens the daughter with hospitalization, but the doctor already knows that the parents have lost to their strong-willed daughter, whose fear of the doctor is growing stronger.