The Great Gatsby

Nick list off allof the people who attended Gatsby’s parties that summer, all of the nation’s most wealthy and powerful people. He then describes a trip that he took to New York with Gatsby to eat lunch. As they drive to the city, Gatsby tells Nick about his past, but his story seems highly unlikely. He claims to be the son of wealthy, deceased parents from the Midwest. When Nick asks which Midwestern city he is from, Gatsby replies, “San Francisco.” Gatsby then lists off a preposterously detailed set of accomplishments: he claims to have been educated at Oxford, to have collected jewels in the capitals of Europe, to have hunted big game, and to have been awarded medals in World War I by multiple European countries. Seeing Nick’s skepticism, Gatsby produces a medal from Montenegro and a picture of himself playing cricket at Oxford.

Gatsby’s car speeds through the valley of ashes and enters the city. When a policeman pulls Gatsby over for speeding, Gatsby shows him a white card and the policeman apologizes for bothering him. In the city, Gatsby takes Nick to lunch and introduces him to Meyer Wolfshiem, who, he claims, was responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series. Wolfshiem is a shady character with underground business connections. He gives Nick the impression that the source of Gatsby’s wealth might be unsavory, and that Gatsby may even have ties to the sort of organized crime with which Wolfshiem is associated.

After lunch Jordan is finally ready to reveal what the conversation was with her and Gatsby. Gatsby had told her that he was in love with Daisey and explained there past before her and Tom got married. He asked her to ask Nick if he will set up an afternoon of tea in which he invites Daisey an doesn't tell her that Gatsby is going to be ther forcing her to meet him again.

On the way home after a date with Jordan Gatsby startles Nick by approaching nick on the lawn. He is nervous and ask if he will do stuff with him like go to Conney island, and Nick realizes that Gatsby wants him to go along with is plan involving Daisey. Nick agrees and Gatsby is satisfied.

It rains on the day of the tea meating, and Gatsby becomes very nervous. Despite the rain, Gatsby sends a gardener over to cut Nick’s grass and sends another man over with flowers. Gatsby worries that even if Daisy accepts him, things between them will not be the same as they were in Louisville. Daisy arrives, but when Nick brings her into the house, he finds that Gatsby has suddenly disappeared. There is a knock at the door. Gatsby enters, having returned from a walk around the house in the rain.

Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy is terribly awkward. Gatsby knocks Nick’s clock over and tells Nick that the meeting was a mistake. After he leaves the two alone for half an hour Nick returns to find them radiantly happy.Daisy crying with joy and Gatsby ecstatic. The rain has stopped, and Gatsby invites Nick and Daisy over to his house. Daisy is overwhelmed by his luxuries, and when he shows her his extensive collection of English shirts, she begins to cry. Gatsby tells Daisy about his long nights spent outside, staring at the green light at the end of her dock, dreaming about their future happiness.

Nick wonders whether if Daisy can live up to Gatsby's expectations. Gatsby seems to have idealized Daisy in his mind to the extent that the real Daisy will almost certainly fail to live up to his expectations. For the moment their romance seems fully rekindled. Gatsby calls in Klipspringer, a strange character who seems to live at Gatsby’s mansion, and has him play the piano. Klipspringer plays a popular song called “Ain’t We Got Fun?” Nick quickly realizes that Gatsby and Daisy have forgotten that he is there. Quietly, Nick gets up and leaves Gatsby and Daisy alone together.

Gatsby's history has came out. Gatsby was born James Gatz on a North Dakota farm, and though he attended college at St. Olaf’s in Minnesota, he dropped out after two weeks, loathing the humiliating janitorial work by means of which he paid his tuition

He worked on Lake Superior the next summer fishing. One day, he saw a yacht owned by Dan Cody, and rowed out to warn him about a storm. The grateful Cody took young Gatz on board his yacht as his personal assistant. Traveling with Cody to the Barbary Coast and the West Indies, Gatsby fell in love with wealth and luxury. Cody was a heavy drinker, and one of Gatsby’s jobs was to look after. This gave Gatsby a healthy respect for the dangers of alcohol and convinced him not to become a drinker himself. When Cody died, he left Gatsby $25,000, but Cody’s mistress prevented him from claiming his inheritance. Gatsby then dedicated himself to becoming a wealthy and successful man.

Nick sees neither Gatsby nor Daisy for several weeks after their reunion at Nick’s house. Stopping by Gatsby’s house one afternoon, he is surprised to see Tom Buchanan there. Tom has stopped for a drink at Gatsby’s house with Mr. and Mrs. Sloane, with whom he has been out riding. Gatsby seems nervous and agitated, and tells Tom awkwardly that he knows Daisy. Gatsby invites Tom and the Sloanes to stay for dinner, but they refuse. To be polite, they invite Gatsby to dine with them, and he accepts. Tom is observent of Gatsby’s lack of social grace and highly critical of Daisy’s habit of visiting Gatsby’s house alone. He is suspicious, but he has not yet discovered the two.

Gatsby throws another party that Saturday, Tom and Daisey go. Tom doesn't want to go but he wants to keep an eye on Daisey. Tom upsets Daisey by saying Gatsby's money comes through Bootlegging and she angrily replies saying his money comes from a chain of drug stores.

Nick heads to Tom and Daisey's and meets Jordan and Gatsby there as well. Gatsby see's their child for the first time and can't believe it's real. Daisey seems to show emotion toward it. As the day progresses Daisey and Gatsby can't hide there feelings for each other, Daisey asks Gatsby if he wants to go into the city.

Wanting confrontation, Tom suggest everyone go into the city. Nick, Tom, and Jordan stopping for gas at Wilson's garage learn that he knows of his wife cheating, but not the lover. It seems as if him and Tom are in the same boat.

Starting the confrontation, Tom mocks how Gatsby calls everyone "old sport". He accuses Gatsby of never going to Oxford and running some kind of boot leg. Tom asks Gatsby about his intentions for Daisy, and Gatsby replies that Daisy loves him, not Tom. During the day Daisey seems to be moving closer to Tom and he send her to Long island with Gatsby to prove him wrong.

As Gatsby and Daisey were headed home the hit Myrtle in the Valley of Ashes and left her there. Nick, Jordan, and Tom see her and think they did it. When Nick is at Tom's house he is waiting for Gatsby and they talk. Gatsby say that it was Daisey who struck Myrtle but he'll take the blame.

After everything Nick and Gatsby talk in his mansion. Gatsby say that he waited until four am outside of Daisey's and nothing happened. Nick suggested that Gatsby should leave and forget about Daisey but Gatsby can't and he explains there past and how they loved each other.

As the two are talking the gardner ask if he want the pool drained cause autumn is in the air and he doesn't want the pool to be clogged with leafs. Gatsby says no he wants to swim in it, Nick realizes he is really late fore work and leaves. As he is leaving Nick shouts that Gatsby is worth more than the Buchanans and all of their friends.

George Wilson stays up all night talking to Michaelis about Myrtle. He tells him that before Myrtle died, he confronted her about her lover and told her that she could not hide her sin from the eyes of God. The morning after the accident, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, illuminated by the dawn, overwhelm Wilson. He believes they are the eyes of God and leaps to the conclusion that whoever was driving the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover. He decides that God demands revenge and leaves to track down the owner of the car. He looks for Tom, because he knows that Tom is familiar with the car’s owner—he saw Tom driving the car earlier that day but knows Tom could not have been the driver since Tom arrived after the accident in a different car with Nick and Jordan. Wilson eventually goes to Gatsby’s house, where he finds Gatsby lying on an air mattress in the pool, floating in the water and looking up at the sky. Wilson shoots Gatsby, killing him instantly, then shoots himself.

Nick hurries back to West Egg and finds Gatsby floating dead in his pool. Nick imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts, and pictures him disillusioned by the meaninglessness and emptiness of life without Daisy, without his dream.

At the Funeral it was hectic, with journalist and gossipmongers. Nick tried to have many people come, but people were either moved away or didn't come. Gatsby's father fills in Nick about his early life.

Nick decides to move back to the Midwest and in New York he encounters Tom. Tom tells nick that he told Wilson it was Gatsby's car who struck Myrtle, and he said Gatsby deserved to die. Nick came to the conclusion that Tom and Daisey are careless and uncaring people and that they destroy people and things, knowing that their money will shield them from ever having to face any negative consequences.

On his last night in West Egg before moving back to Minnesota, Nick walks over to Gatsby’s empty mansion and erases an obscene word that someone has written on the steps. He lays out on the beach behind Gatsby’s house and looks up. As the moon rises, he imagines the island with no houses and considers what it looked like to the explorers who discovered the New World. He imagines that America was once a goal for dreamers and explorers, just as Daisy was for Gatsby. He pictures the green land of America as the green light shining from Daisy’s dock, and muses that Gatsby failed to realize that the dream had already ended, that his goals had become hollow and empty. Nick senses that people everywhere are motivated by similar dreams and by a desire to move forward into a future in which their dreams are realized. Nick envisions their struggles to create that future as boats moving in a body of water against a current that inevitably carries them back into the past.