The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Summary
The Great Gatsby is a fictional drama that takes place in Long Island, New York during the 1900s. It is about a mysterious wealthy man Jay Gatsby, told by his neighbor Nick Carraway. Nick is from Minnesota but then moves to New York for job opportunities. After being Gatsby’s neighbor for so long, Nick tells about how Gatsby has gigantic parties in his huge mansion every Saturday night. Daisy Buchanan is Nick Carraway’s cousin, also married to her husband Tom. Tom was Nick’s classmate at Yale.
After Nick was invited to one of Gatsby’s parties, he starts to understand the love that Gatsby has for Daisy, and sense Daisy’s husband Nick is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, he decides to set up Daisy to meet Gatsby without her knowing. When Nick invites Daisy over for tea, she is shocked to find out that Gatsby is there, and she immediately falls in love with him all over again, and they start to have an affair.
Daisy’s husband Tom starts to become suspicious about her and Gatsby’s affair, and he realizes that Gatsby is in love with her when he sees the way he looks at her while they are at a lunch at his house. When Tom talks to Gatsby about him and Daisy, Gatsby tells him that he will never understand their history, and that Daisy will never look at Tom the way she looks at him.
After Gatsby’s car hits and kills Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, rumors start to fly that Gatsby ran her over on purpose, but no one knows that it was not Gatsby who ran her over, it was Daisy. Because of the feelings Gatsby has for Daisy, he decides to cover for her, so nobody will find out she was the one who actually killed her. Nick tells George, Myrtles husband, that Gatsby was the one who ran her over, so Nick gets angry and goes over to Gatsby’s mansion.
The next day George shoots Gatsby because of the crime he committed, and then kills himself afterwards. In the last chapter, Nick has a funeral for Gatsby, and realizes that love overcomes everything, and he becomes sad when he realizes Gatsby had no real friends, because they all liked him for his parties and his money.
How does Literature Shape or Reflect Society?
The Great Gatsby is an intense love story, and I think because our society is obsessed with reading and watching love stories, it reflects the kind of literature we like the most. When people read stories like The Great Gatsby, it shapes them to look at people who are wealthy and seem like they have everything in a different way then you would originally look at them. Our society thinks that when someone lives in a big mansion, and has a lot of money, that they did something great to get it, or that they are the happiest person on earth. But in reality, they could have gotten all their money by doing illegal things, and that maybe they are not the happiest person, because all the money and wealth means nothing without sharing it with the person you love, Daisy.
This story writes about the American dream, romance and mystery, three things that draws people in. When people read this book, it reflects how characters in books are similar to real life people. It shows that when you really love someone, that love can never die, and people in books and in real life society will do anything to get what they want, and that people will do anything they can do become wealthy.
This book is a piece of American Literature, something that is very important to our society, and something that our society loves. It connects the readers to the characters, and draws them in so deeply that there is no way it cannot shape you differently that you were before. This story can make you relate yourself to the characters when you realize you have a lot more in common with them than you originally thought, and that their actions and thoughts remind you of our society today.