The Great Gatsby (Original 1925 Edition) recap

In 1922, bond salesman Nick Carraway rents a house beside the mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire famous for lavish parties. Gatsby has built his fortune and public identity around the hope of reclaiming Nick's cousin Daisy, whom he loved before the war and who married the wealthy Tom Buchanan. Nick arranges their reunion, but Gatsby's demand that Daisy erase her years with Tom turns the revived romance into a confrontation. Daisy cannot deny loving Tom, and while driving Gatsby's car she strikes and kills Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Gatsby protects Daisy by accepting the blame, but she withdraws into her marriage. Tom directs Myrtle's grieving husband George toward Gatsby; George kills Gatsby and himself. Almost none of Gatsby's guests attend his funeral. Nick recognizes the destructiveness beneath Tom and Daisy's privilege, breaks with Jordan Baker, and returns west, leaving Gatsby's dream as both a remarkable act of hope and a doomed attempt to recover the past.

In the spring of 1922, Nick Carraway leaves the Midwest to sell bonds in New York and rents a small house in West Egg, the less socially established of Long Island's wealthy communities. Across the bay in East Egg live his cousin Daisy, her powerful husband Tom Buchanan, and their young daughter. At dinner Nick meets the golfer Jordan Baker and sees signs that Daisy's charming manner conceals unhappiness. A telephone call exposes Tom's ongoing affair, while Tom's bullying conversation and racist arguments reveal his need to dominate others. Back at home, Nick sees his neighbor Jay Gatsby for the first time: a solitary figure outside an immense mansion, stretching his arms toward a green light at the end of Daisy's dock across the water.

Tom takes Nick through the valley of ashes, an industrial wasteland watched over by a faded optician's billboard. At George Wilson's garage they collect George's wife Myrtle, Tom's mistress, and go to an apartment Tom keeps in Manhattan. The afternoon becomes a drunken gathering with Myrtle's sister Catherine and the McKees. Myrtle imitates the manners of wealth and speaks as though Tom will rescue her from George. When she repeatedly invokes Daisy during an argument, Tom strikes her and breaks her nose. Later, Nick attends one of the enormous parties at Gatsby's house. Guests arrive without invitations and spread contradictory rumors about their host. Nick unknowingly speaks with Gatsby, who proves courteous and restrained amid the disorder. Gatsby then holds a private conversation with Jordan, leaving her astonished but unwilling to tell Nick what was said.

Gatsby drives Nick to lunch and offers a polished but doubtful account of inherited wealth, Oxford, wartime honors, and extensive travel. In Manhattan he introduces Meyer Wolfsheim, a gambler reputed to have fixed the 1919 World Series, suggesting that Gatsby's fortune has connections he does not explain. Jordan then tells Nick the history behind Gatsby's secrecy. Gatsby and Daisy fell in love in Louisville before he went to war, but Daisy eventually married Tom. On the eve of that wedding she received a letter that nearly made her cancel it, then resumed the marriage. Gatsby deliberately bought his house across the bay and gives parties in the hope that Daisy will appear. He has asked Jordan to persuade Nick to invite Daisy to tea, allowing Gatsby to meet her again without initially announcing that he will be there.

Nick invites Daisy to his cottage without telling her that Gatsby will attend. Gatsby arrives in heavy rain, intensely nervous, and the first minutes of the reunion are painfully awkward. Nick leaves the pair alone; when he returns, their embarrassment has given way to intimacy and Gatsby's long anticipation seems briefly fulfilled. He takes Daisy and Nick through his mansion, displaying rooms, possessions, and imported clothes as evidence of the life he has constructed. Daisy weeps over the shirts, and Gatsby watches her responses as if they can confirm the dream he formed during their separation. From his house the green light on Daisy's dock is now close and ordinary. Nick senses that achieving the meeting has changed the symbol's power, even while Gatsby and Daisy become absorbed in one another.

Gatsby's original name was James Gatz, and as a poor young man he invented a new identity before attaching himself to the wealthy Dan Cody. He later tells Tom that Daisy loves him, and Tom begins investigating his background and business. On the hottest day of the summer, Nick, Jordan, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom go to a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Gatsby demands that Daisy say she never loved Tom. She cannot do so, and Tom attacks Gatsby's claim to respectability by exposing his involvement in illegal alcohol sales and other suspect dealings with Wolfsheim. Daisy retreats from Gatsby toward the security of her marriage. Driving back in Gatsby's yellow car, Daisy strikes and kills Myrtle, who runs into the road. Gatsby tells Nick that Daisy was driving but says he will take responsibility. He waits outside the Buchanan house to protect her, while Nick sees Tom and Daisy privately drawing together.

Gatsby tells Nick how he met Daisy as a young officer and let her believe he belonged to her wealthy world. He still waits for her call, refusing to abandon the future he built around her. George Wilson, unhinged by Myrtle's death and convinced her lover owned the yellow car, traces it to Gatsby. He shoots Gatsby in his swimming pool and then kills himself. Nick manages the aftermath but finds that the crowds who used Gatsby's hospitality will not attend his funeral. Daisy and Tom leave without an address, Wolfsheim refuses involvement, and even Klipspringer calls only about belongings. Gatsby's father comes from Minnesota, proud of his son's youthful plans for self-improvement; Owl Eyes is one of the few other mourners. Nick later learns that Tom told George the car belonged to Gatsby. Concluding that Tom and Daisy use wealth to escape the damage they cause, Nick ends his relationship with Jordan and returns west. Gatsby's empty mansion leaves him reflecting on the enduring pursuit of a future that the past keeps out of reach.

George Wilson traces the yellow car that killed Myrtle to Gatsby's house, shoots Gatsby in his swimming pool, and then kills himself. Nick takes responsibility for the aftermath but cannot persuade Daisy, Tom, Gatsby's former guests, or his business associates to attend the funeral. Gatsby's father arrives and shares evidence of his son's lifelong drive for self-invention; Owl Eyes is among the very few mourners. Nick later meets Tom and learns that Tom identified Gatsby to George as the car's owner, while withholding Daisy's role as the driver. Tom and Daisy have already left without an address, protected by their wealth from the damage they helped cause. Disgusted with the East, Nick ends his relationship with Jordan and returns to the Midwest. Before leaving, he looks across the water from Gatsby's empty property and reflects on Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy and on the larger human habit of reaching toward an imagined future while being drawn backward by the past.