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 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
During a Sunday morning party at Gatsby’s, church bells ring in the distance. The attendees hear the usual rumors about Gatsby’s origins. Nick pauses to list the colorful regulars at Gatsby’s parties, which include a heterogeneous array of wealthy and successful individuals.
In late July, Gatsby drives to Nick’s house and takes him to lunch. On the drive, Nick is struck by Gatsby’s efforts to gauge whether or not Nick thinks highly of him. Eventually, he asks Nick’s opinion of him outright. He also asks what Nick thinks of Gatsby’s car, which is extremely luxurious and large.
Gatsby confronts the rumors about his origins directly by saying that he is the son of deceased wealthy parents from the Midwest. However, when asked where in the Midwest, he replies San Francisco. Gatsby goes on to explain that, after inheriting his deceased parents’ wealth, he spent years living lavishly in Europe. After Europe, he tells Nick, he showed great valor in World War I in the Ardennes, receiving medals of honor from multiple countries.
To corroborate his stories, Gatsby shows Nick a picture of him at Oxford and a medal given to him for heroism in Montenegro. To Nick, these stories prove that virtually everything that Gatsby says is true. When they are pulled over for speeding, Gatsby hands the policeman a Christmas card from the police commissioner. Seeing the card, the policeman apologizes and lets them go.
They go to lunch in a basement pub in New York, where they meet Meyer Wolfsheim, a notorious man whom Gatsby apparently knows well. Wolfsheim, Gatsby explains to Nick, fixed the World Series once, determining the outcome in advance for gambling purposes. Wolfsheim uses human molars for cufflinks. After Wolfsheim leaves, Tom arrives. Nick introduces the two, but in the middle of speaking with Tom, he looks back to find Gatsby gone.
Later, Jordan recounts her first meeting with Gatsby in 1917 in Louisville. She lived in Daisy Buchanan’s neighborhood and encountered Daisy in a car with Gatsby. Daisy and Jordan were only loosely friends at the time, and she heard rumors about how Daisy nearly ran off to New York when Gatsby left for the war.
Then she heard about Daisy’s marriage to Tom. Jordan went to the wedding, and the night of the bridal dinner she found Daisy completely drunk, claiming that she would back out of the wedding. Later, a story got into the newspaper about a car accident involving Tom and a woman who is not Daisy. Having told this story, Jordan comes to the subject of her private talk with Gatsby at the party. Apparently, Gatsby wants to meet with Daisy, and he and Jordan intend for Nick to make this happen.
Chapter 4 Analysis
Gatsby’s indication that he was born in the “Midwest” city of San Francisco makes it clear that he is lying. The question for the reader at this point becomes to what extent, if at all, are his lies are mixed with fact. His lies, though, reflect the lies of Nick’s own family, who claim descent from European royalty. Ironically, although sight is often deceiving in the novel, the photograph and medal Gatsby shows off from his past seem like indisputable proof. Nevertheless, his readiness to show them to Nick suggests that Gatsby recognizes their power in upholding his partially true story.
This chapter ties Gatsby to organized crime. Gatsby knows Wolfsheim, and this cannot be a casual or honest acquaintance. The fact that someone as straight-laced as Nick can wind up in proximity to Wolfsheim suggests the prominence of organized crime in 1920s America. Despite their proximity, Nick and Wolfsheim are very different, as evidenced by the human molars on Wolfsheim’s cuffs. These cufflinks symbolize violence and—by implying the exploitation of others for personal gain—the murky sources of wealth. Fitzgerald suggests that American business is not so far removed from crime and that the affluent are not so different from mobsters.
Meanwhile, there are some moments of intense racism in this chapter, and these in turn signal the distance that Nick and those in his social stratum feel from those of other races and ethnicities. Nick is more open-minded than Tom, who is obsessed with fears of the declining white race but has no basis for a close understanding of those not like him.
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By F. Scott Fitzgerald
