The Great Gatsby
By: F. Scott Fitzgerald // Genre: Drama
Summary
The Great Gatsby starts off with Nick Carraway talking about himself. In the summer of 1922, Nick had just arrived in New York, where he moved to work in the bond business, and rented a house on a part of Long Island called West Egg. He goes out to dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband, later that night after an unusual dinner, he sees Gatsby for the first time standing on a dock looking out into the dark water. Nick had begun to do research on Tom and Daisy’s marriage, and finds out Tom has a love, Myrtle Wilson. A while later, as the summer goes on, Nick get invited to one of Gatsby’s parties. At the party Nick meets Gatsby and Nick realizes he’s a young man who has a English accent, calls everyone “old sport”, and always has a wonderful smile on his face. Gatsby had begun to tell Jordan that he had met Daisy in Louisville and loves her a lot. Gatsby wanted to reunite with Daisy, so Nick had invited Daisy for tea at Gatsby’s home. When Daisy arrived, they had taken time to reconnect and their love for each other had grown. They have had many different times where they hungout together at Gatsby’s home and Daisy had realized she doesn’t love Tom; it is Gatsby that she loves. One day they go for a drive through the valley of ashes and they find out that Gatsby’s car had hit Tom’s lover and killed her. The truth was it was not Gatsby driving, it was Daisy, but nobody had known besides Gatsby, Daisy and now Nick, and they were sworn to never tell. They were all gathered at Tom’s mansion, when Tom tells everyone things nobody knew about Gatsby, Gatsby had lost his temper and grabbed Tom by the jacket with a clenched fist, but Gatsby realized what he was doing and apologized, but Daisy cried in fear. A few days later, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband that Gatsby killed her and that he was her lover. Later that day, Gatsby had been waiting for Daisy to call him, but she never did. Nick had just left to go to work, when Gatsby was swimming in the pool and the phone rang, he thought it was Daisy, but just then there was a gun shot, and Myrtle’s husband had shot Gatsby, then shot himself. The phone call was not even Daisy it was Tom calling from work to check up on Gatsby. Nick arranges a funeral for Gatsby and moves back to the Midwest. Nick had called Daisy’s home to tell her the bad news, but the butler had direct orders to say nobody was home and that her and Tom had left. Nick had realized that Gatsby’s dream life of being with Daisy had corrupted him by dishonesty and money and now both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream have both ended.
Essential Questions
The first essential question I am going to be talking about is, how does literature shape or reflect society. I think The Great Gatsby reflects on society because when young people see their “love at first sight” they grow emotionally attached. Causing them to do anything for the other person. They try to do anything to be together. When they first reunite it’s like it all happened all over again, they look into each other’s eyes and get lost, they drown in their love and happiness. Like for example; in The Great Gatsby, Jay fell in love with Daisy the first time he met her when he was in the war, he said himself that it was love at first sight. But after Jay left the war, Daisy had married Tom, but had drank herself numb the day before her wedding. She had received a letter from Jay Gatsby, and from there on she had stayed loyal to Tom, but Tom has not stayed loyal to her, as he is having an affair with Myrtle Carraway. This always reflect on society because now day’s, some people think it’s okay to have two lovers without either of them knowing about the other, and it just shows the type of character some people have. In this time period, people don’t realize or even care about others feelings, as long as they are happy and not the one’s being hurt. All of these things just show how poor some people’s characters are, and it is depressing.
What makes American Lit American? In The Great Gatsby it’s American because it was set in the 1920s of America. It shows how good some people’s lives are compared to others, for example; Jay Gatsby is rich, throws fancy parties, had anything and everything people could dream of, and then there are men like George, Myrtle’s husband, who work so hard to survive and keep him and his wife a home. People like Jay Gatsby can host amazing parties, have lots of guests, and serve them with beverages, because he has a very fortunate life and there are some people in America that are able to live like that and sadly there are some people in America that are not so fortunate, who suffer each and every day.