56 pages • 1 hour read
F. Scott FitzgeraldThe Great Gatsby
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1925A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Narrator Nick Carraway relates details about his upbringing in an affluent Midwest family. He explains that, while they represent themselves as descendants of royalty, their origins only go back as far as a mid-19th century hardware store proprietor. Supported by family wealth, Nick graduated from Yale in 1915 and fought in World War I. Restless after the war, Nick forgoes returning to his home and moves to New York to pursue a career as a bond salesman. Instead of living in New York City, he decides to live in the nearby country town of West Egg on Long Island.
Nick lives at the end of West Egg closest to the more fashionable East Egg, located across the Long Island Sound. From his house, he can see the neighboring large home which turns out to belong to a man named Jay Gatsby. The house is a conspicuous and “colossal” ivy-covered home, with a marble swimming pool.
Nick has acquaintances in East Egg: his second cousin Daisy lives there with her husband Tom Buchanan, whom Nick knew at Yale. Tom was an excellent college football player and comes from a very wealthy family. Their home is a “Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay” (6), covered in ivy like Gatsby’s.
Tom often evokes dislike because of his wealth, physique, and tendency to come across as haughty. On a visit to the Buchanans’ home, Nick spends time with them, as well as their friend, Miss Jordan Baker, who looks familiar to Nick.
During a frivolous and privileged conversation among the group, Tom mentions a racist book about protecting the White race; Tom claims that the book’s arguments are scientific fact. He explains that the Nordic races, of which he says he and Nick are members, created civilization. No one engages Tom in this discussion, which perturbs Nick.
After some whispered words from his butler, Tom leaves the table. Daisy quickly follows him. Nick attempts to maintain light conversation, but Jordan interrupts. She explains that the interruption in dinner has to do with an affair Tom is having with a woman who lives in New York City. According to Jordan, the mistress may have brazenly called during dinner. Tom and Daisy return just after Miss Baker’s explanation. Daisy distracts from the obvious tension by describing a nightingale that she claims to have heard singing on the lawn.
The phone rings, and tension overwhelms the gathering. Nick is particularly distressed by the situation. After a few minutes, the group splits up in the library: Tom and Jordan wander around while Nick is left with Daisy. To his surprise, Daisy confronts him with the fact that Daisy and Nick, though related, are not at all close. Disconcerted, he changes the subject to her daughter.
Jordan leaves because she has a golf tournament the next day. At this point, Nick realizes that she is a well-known athlete who is also somewhat notorious for her personal life. Nick is thus left alone with Tom and Daisy, who chide him about a rumor that he was involved in a failed engagement to a woman. Although Nick tells the reader that the rumor is untrue, their curiosity touches him.
Upon returning home, Nick sees Gatsby standing close by and thinks of calling to him and inviting him for dinner. However, something about Gatsby’s demeanor leads Nick to make up his mind not to do so.
Chapter 1 Analysis
The novel begins with the narrator, Nick Carraway, providing some oblique thoughts about moral or ethical judgment and class. It quickly becomes clear that his values are entangled with his sense of class. This chapter introduces many of the complex class tensions that exist in the novel, between “old money” and “new money,” between Midwestern humility and East Coast opulence, and—most dramatically—between rich and poor.
At the very start, Nick imparts a piece of advice given to him by his father: “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one […] just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had” (1). This statement shows that people like Nick’s wealthy father assumes that poor people will be more prone to moral failings than the affluent. The tolerance he hopes to impart to his son has to do with how he judges the less prosperous. Yet in adulthood, Nick reverses this truism, forgiving wealthy people for their transgressions because wealth inevitably damages one’s moral compass.
That Nick was indoctrinated by his father is apparent in his attitude toward Gatsby. He admires Gatsby’s personality, which reflects Gatsby’s wealth. However, he despises Gatsby’s desire to rise out of his inherited social station. This is ironic, as Nick’s family is guilty of the same thing; the only difference is that they have solidified their position while Gatsby’s remains unstable.
Nick explains that, much to his surprise, he has opted to live in a strange community. As the narrative progresses, it reveals that Long Island is strange because it is by heritage a fishing village but has become inhabited by some of the richest people in America due to its proximity to New York City. This gentrification—the transition that occurs when wealthy newcomers displace a neighborhood’s original inhabitants—is thematically important because it reminds readers that in the United States, even as late as the end of World War I, American society was developed on land that was cleared of its indigenous inhabitants. The neighborhood reflects both The Capacity to Reinvent One’s Identity and the disparities between the underprivileged and the privileged.
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