The narrator recalls advice from his father: "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one…just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
He is inclined to reserve judgment, a habit that has opened up curious natures but also made him a target for bores.
In college, he was unjustly accused of being a politician because he was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.
He admits his tolerance has a limit; after a certain point, he doesn't care what conduct is founded on.
Only Gatsby was exempt from his scorn, representing everything he had an unaffected scorn for.
Gatsby had a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness.
The narrator's family has been prominent and well-to-do in the Middle West for three generations, claiming descent from the Dukes of Buccleuch.
He graduated from New Haven in 1915 and participated in the Great War, which left him restless.
He decided to go East to learn the bond business, financed by his father for a year, and arrived in the spring of 1922.
He chose to live in a commuting town instead of the city and found a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow for eighty dollars a month.
He felt like a guide and pathfinder, experiencing the conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
He bought volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, intending to become a "well-rounded man."
He rented a house in West Egg, the less fashionable of the two Eggs, located on a slender, riotous island east of New York.
West Egg and East Egg are unusual formations of land separated by a courtesy bay.
His house was squeezed between two huge places, with Gatsby's mansion on his right, described as a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy.
Across the courtesy bay, the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water.
The narrator drove over to East Egg to have dinner with Tom and Daisy Buchanan; Daisy is his second cousin once removed, and he knew Tom in college.
Tom had been a powerful football end at New Haven and was enormously wealthy.
Tom and Daisy had spent a year in France for no particular reason and then drifted restlessly wherever people played polo and were rich together.
Tom's physical appearance: a sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a hard mouth and a supercilious manner. His body was capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body.
The Buchanan's house was a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay with a vast lawn that ran from the beach to the front door.
The narrator recalls that he and Tom were in the same Senior Society, and while they were never intimate, Tom always had the impression that he approved of him and wanted him to like him.
The narrator is introduced to Jordan Baker, who Daisy said was staying with them. She was balancing as if she was balancing something on her chin which was quite likely to fall.
Daisy says she is "p-paralyzed with happiness."
Daisy has a thrilling voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.
Daisy hints at a recent exciting past. She also mentioned that he should see her two year old baby.
Tom abruptly takes Nick away from Daisy and tells him she is restless, as they talk he keeps glancing at Daisy.
Jordan Baker exclaims "Absolutely" in an unexpected moment.
Jordan remarks that the narrator must know Gatsby because he lives in West Egg.
Tom abruptly takes Nick away to announce dinner.
The two women preceded them out to the porch that was rosy-colored. However, Daisy snaps out the candles with her fingers. She also remarks about longing for the longest day of the year and then missing it.
Miss Baker is contemptuous of the narrator's location of west egg.
Daisy mentions her hurt finger, accusing Tom of doing it even though he probably didn't mean to.
Tom objects even in kidding to being called hulking.
Daisy and miss Baker talk unobtrusively. They accept Tom and Nick in their lives making polite efforts to be entertained.
They know that soon the dinner and the evening will casually be put away.
The speaker contrasts this attitude sharply against the West, where there is either disappointed anticipation or dread of the moment itself.
Tom breaks out about civilization going to pieces, referencing a book called "The Rise of the Coloured Empires."
Tom believes that the dominant races need to be careful. He refers to himself, Nick, and eventually nodding to Daisy as Nordics.
After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. “--and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?”
Daisy leans toward Nick about a family secret about the butler's nose due to being a silver polisher who polished silver from morning-till-night until finally it began to affect his nose.
Miss Baker suggests that the butler's nose condition went from bad to worse until he had to give up his position.
Tom is whispered to by the butler, and Tom pushed back his chair and went inside without saying a word.
Daisy says she loves have to Nick at her table and says he reminds her of a rose. An expression of which, Nick disagrees with.
Daisy suddenly throws her napkin on the table, excuses herself and goes away into the house.
Miss Baker and Nick exchange a short glance consciously devoid of meaning.
As the murmur of a fight can be heard, Miss Baker admits that Tom has some woman in New York.
Daisy said it couldn't be helped about the phone as she glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at Nick.
There were candles being lit again pointlessly. Nick was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes.
Tom and Miss Baker take a stroll while Nick follows Daisy to the front porch. It is in the deep gloom of the porch that they sat down side by side on wicker.
Daisy had turbulent emotions and says to Nick that she's had a very bad time, and that she’s pretty cynical about everything.
Daisy relays that when the nurse said that she had birth of a baby girl she turned her head and wept. She continued by saying that she hopes that her daughter grows up to be a beautiful little fool because that is the best thing a girl can be in this world.
Daisy eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn as she calls herself “Sophisticated."
Daisy states "To be continued," as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Miss Baker explains that Jordan is going to play in the tournament tomorrow.
Tom remarks they shouldn't let Jordan Baker around the country like that because she is a nice girl.
Daisy mentions that Nick is going to look after Jordan, aren't she nick because she's going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. Implying that home influence of herself will be good for her.
Tom corroborates and says that heard that Nick was engaged.
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence. “Is she from New York?” I asked quickly. “From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white----"
Daisy asks Nick if Tom gave him a little heart to heart talk on the veranda and says that she creeped up that talk on the Nordic race on him and that first thing you know
Daisy opens up again with the question for Nick and the rumor for Nick regarding the engagement out west.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich--nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away.
As Nick drove home there he sat for a while and saw a figure emerge from the shadow of his neighbor's mansion come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
There was a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.
Chapter 2
The motor-road joins the railroad beside a desolate area of land called the valley of ashes.
The valley of ashes is a symbolic wasteland between West Egg and New York, representing the moral decay hidden by the wealth of the Roaring Twenties.
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, a billboard advertisement, loom over the valley, symbolizing a lost sense of spiritual awareness.
Tom Buchanan's mistress resides in this desolate area, and the narrator is taken to meet her.
There is a small building on the edge of the waste land-containing 3 shops. One store for rent, one all night restaurant approached via ashes, and a car garage/repair: "Repairs. GEORGE B. WILSON. Cars Bought and Sold—"
George Wilson's garage is unprosperous and bare, with a dust-covered wreck of a Ford visible.
Wilson is described as a blonde, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome.
Tom treats Wilson with a jovial yet condescending manner.
Myrtle Wilson, Tom's mistress, appears. She is in her middle thirties, faintly stout, with an immediately perceptible vitality about her.
Myrtle's vitality contrasts sharply with the desolation of the valley of ashes.
Tom and Myrtle exchange an intense look, arranging a meeting on the next train.
Tom tells Wilson that his wife goes to see her sister, even though instead she sees tom in New York.
Tom, Myrtle, and the narrator travel to New York together, with Myrtle taking a separate car to avoid East Egg sensibilities.
In New York, Myrtle buys "Town Tattle" magazine, a moving-picture magazine, cold cream, and perfume.
Myrtle insists on buying a dog for their apartment, selecting an airedale puppy from a street vendor.
The superficiality of Myrtle's desires is highlighted by her eagerness to acquire material possessions.
The group proceeds to an apartment on 158th Street, described as small and crowded, a sharp contrast to the Buchanan's mansion.
In the apartment was a photograph over-enlarged photograph, apparently a hen sitting on a blurred rock eventually identified as stout old lady
The apartment is filled with tapestried furniture and has picture of old woman, scandal magazines, bottle of whiskey from locked bureau door
Nick has been drunk only twice in his life, this being the second time, so everything that happened has a dim hazy cast over it
Mrs. McKee and her husband join the group. Mrs. McKee is shrill, languid, handsome and horrible and shares with Nick her pride that Mr. McKee had photographed her a hundred and twenty-seven times since they had been married.
Catherine, Myrtle's sister, arrives, described as slender and worldly with a solid bob of red hair and a milky complexion.
Mr. McKee is a pale, feminine man in the "artistic game" and had taken the enlargement of Myrtle's mother that was hanging on the wall.
Mr. McKee suggests to Mrs. Wilson that her pose in the dress could allow Chester to make something of it.
There is dialogue about a woman, that Myrtle Wilson knew, who claimed to have performed appendicitis feet when she had looked at her feet.
Tom yawns audibly and gets to his feet as Mrs. McKee and Mr. Wilson are conversing.
Tom and Myrtle go back into the kitchen as Myrtle is implying A dozen chefs will await with her orders.
Catherine reveals to the narrator that Gatsby is believed to be a Kaiser Wilhelm's nephew or cousin, and this is seen where his money comes from.
Neither Myrtle or Tom can stand to the person they are married to - What I say is, why go on living with them if they can't stand them? If I was them I'd get a divorce and get married to each other right away.
Catherine suggests to Nick that when Tom and Myrtle get married, they will relocate to the West until it blows over.
Catherine then says she went to Monte Carlo, but was gypped out of all the money when she went with a girlfriend, which caused her to hate that town.
Mrs. McKee interjects and states that she would have been married to a man below her if it wasn’t for Chester
Mrs. Wilson added that she married him, George, because she thought he was a gentleman.
Tom rang for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves and Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom, but as he tried to leave, he was pulled back into some sort of argument
Myrtle's story of meeting Tom on the train, being attracted to his dress suit and patent leather shoes, ultimately leading to an affair.
The party grows increasingly drunk and chaotic, with the details highlighting the superficiality and recklessness of the attendees.
Tom breaks Myrtle's nose for repeating Daisy's name, ending the party abruptly.
Chapter 3
Music is constant at Gatsby's house during the summer nights. There are parties going on.
Gatsby does maintenance and repair because of party so many servants are on site with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears.
Every Friday, crates of oranges and lemons are delivered, and on Mondays, they are removed, pulpless, with a machine to extract juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour.
A bar is set up in Gatsby’s main Hall with forgotten gins liquor and forgotten cordials for woman.
At 7 o'clock the orchestra arrives a group to play music - jazz and opera.
They are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on out through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing lights.
People came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission
Nick received an invitation and he went to Gatsby's lawn a little after seven and wandered around rather ill-at-ease among swirls and eddies of people he didn't know, though here and there was a face he had noticed on the commuting train.
Those people with a well-dressed in selling something bonds or insurance or automobiles.
Nick finds Jordan Baker who extends a promise of care from Nick.
Jordan Baker tells him hello as Nick moves toward his location to meet up
Jordan is revealed to have died her hair.
I like to come,” Lucille said. “I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address--inside of a week I got a package from Croirier's with a new evening gown in it.
Someone told me they thought he killed a man once - people said one had been a German spy during the war
It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.
There were three married couples and Jordan's escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree.
They enter a high Gothic library with a middle-aged man with glasses stared at some book shelves. He reveals that all the books are real, and that this filled has a regular Belasco.
There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden, old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners--and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps
A pair of stage twirls do a baby act in costume.
Nick and Jordan Baker talked about a man named Gatsby.
People make plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name
Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.
There were bloody towels on the bathroom floor with Mr. McKee in a daze toward the door.
As Nick followed the man outside, he suggested to come to lunch sometime where he will show him his album containing Beauty and the Beast.
In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars
That evening, there was no need for invitation at Gatsby’s - the party was there for all.
Late evening there's a crashed car with missing wheel and two drunk individuals who can't tell the wheel is off
Nick then reflects on his day, his work, Yale Club, romantic women from the crowd.
Nick states he is one of the few honest people that I have ever known.
Chapter 4
Mention about summer and ladies in Gatsby's house like the women who can be reached out their hands and pour the last drop into the clear crystal glass
Nick on Sunday morning is church bells ring in the village along at Gatsby's house world and mistress returned in line lawn.
Long list in the middle of chapter of attendees for Gatsby’s gatherings from east and west egg and even as far as from New York itself like
Chester beckers and Leeches
Newton orchid controlled Films Par Excellence and Eckhaust and Clyde Cohen
Catlips and Ben bergs
The list includes Gus Weise, Horace O’Donavan and less than Mayer and George duckweed and Francis bull
At 9 o’clock a car of Gatsbys a rocks driveway to nick door. - good morning old sport is quoted at Nick.
Jay Gatsby came to pick up Nick for lunch
We haven't reached West Egg Village before Gatsby began living his elegant sense he is unfinished and slapping himself on the knee of his camel color soon all that nick of me anyhow.
Gatsby says he is son of some wealthy people with the oath that everything he has spoken would be Gods truth. He also says he comes from some wealthy people in the middle west all dead now educated Oxford traditions in line and Gatsby says and knows of the liar with the story what part of Mid West do you mean I see.
His voice was solemn as if the memory of that sudden extinction of a plan still haunted him.
And I tried very hard to die but I seemed to Baron enchanted wife I accepted a commission is for select in it when it began in the Argonne Forest, I major promotions every Allied government gave a vacation even Montreal
Orderi di Danilo, ran the circular legend, Montenegro, Nicolas Rex. “Turn it.” Major Jay Gatsby, I read, For Valour Extraordinary.
Then it was all true I saw the skins that I have the power that you ought to know something. I didn't want you to think it seems that no body you see.
He says why don't you come out friendly can tell you about the matter he says
His current is growing this we neared the city we passed for Roosevelt or there but it was a glimpse of red-belted ocean crossing ship is no old I just the police officer at the time taking that white card my wallet he away at the eyes the right one I thought I know you next time next to B excuse me.
The city of see from the queens but its all as some mystery and beauty to the war
Three Modis negronis two box girl. “Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge