Chapter One Great Gatsby Summary
In The Great Gatsby, Chapter i, the table is fix, both figuratively and literally. Figurative table setting includes coming together our narrator, Nick Carraway, and getting a sense of the wealthy Long Isle neighborhood where the novel volition take place. Literal tabular array setting—well, that's the dinner Nick has with his cousin Daisy, her hubby Tom, and their friend (and Nick'southward eventual love interest) Hashemite kingdom of jordan Baker. Keep reading to learn more well-nigh what happens in this chapter, understand how it touches on the novel's main themes, and see shut readings of key quotations! Our commendation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, then using page numbers would only work for students with our re-create of the book. To find a quotation nosotros cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, y'all can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; fifty-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: finish of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. Nick Carraway introduces himself every bit a nonjudgmental observer of other people who has recently returned to his home in a wealthy Midwestern family unit from the E Coast afterwards a devastating disappointment. This disappointment is the story he is about to tell, which happened ii years before. After graduating from Yale, and fighting in WWI, Nick decides to go a bond trader and moves near NYC. Nick rents a house in West Egg, a Long Island suburb that is less fashionable than East Egg, which lies beyond the Long Island Sound. His tiny, inexpensive bungalow is next to Gatsby's enormous, tacky mansion. Nick goes to accept dinner with his cousin Daisy and her extremely rich hubby Tom Buchanan, whom he knows slightly from Yale. Their firm is overwhelmingly decorated. Tom is gruff, ambitious, and physically intimidating. Daisy and her friend Jordan Baker are wearing white dresses that wait similar balloons in the breeze. Daisy laughs a lot and speaks in a depression, extremely appealing voice. Their conversation is scattered and shallow, and everyone talks over each other. During dinner, Tom all of a sudden reveals himself to be a racist, influenced by a book that argues that the "dominant white race" is in danger of being overwhelmed by minorities. The phone rings for Tom. After he goes to answer information technology, Daisy seems upset and leaves the room. Jordan tells Nick that the phone call is from Tom'southward mistress in New York. The rest of dinner is tense and bad-mannered and makes Nick feel similar he should phone call the police. Later on dinner, Daisy takes Nick bated and tells him that she has become cynical. Nick asks Daisy about her two-year-sometime daughter. Daisy doesn't seem to have any maternal feelings. When she found out that she had given birth to a girl, Daisy'due south first reaction was to cry. She hopes her daughter will grow upward to exist a "beautiful fool" (ane.118). Despite the fact that Daisy seems to be baring her soul to him, Nick thinks this display of misery is some kind of an act. Daisy and Nick rejoin Tom and Jordan, and Nick realizes that Jordan is a relatively famous professional person golfer. He'due south seen her in magazines and has heard an unpleasant story about her. Later Hashemite kingdom of jordan goes to bed, Daisy matter-of-factly tells Nick to get-go a romantic relationship with Hashemite kingdom of jordan. Tom, meanwhile, tells Nick not to believe annihilation Daisy told him when she took him aside. Tom and Daisy ask Nick about a rumor that he was engaged. Nick denies it. This rumor is really one of the reasons he has come East. Nick leaves the house dislocated about why Daisy doesn't only take her daughter and leave Tom. All the same, he can see that she has no intention of doing so. Back at his house, Nick sees the figure of Gatsby outside his mansion. Nick thinks about introducing himself, but refrains when he sees Gatsby stretching his arms out toward a green low-cal on the opposite shore of the bay. In my younger and more vulnerable years my male parent gave me some communication that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you experience like criticizing any one," he told me, "only remember that all the people in this earth haven't had the advantages that you've had." (1.1-2) The opening lines of the book color how we understand Nick's clarification of everything that happens in the novel. Nick wants to nowadays himself as a wise, objective, nonjudgmental observer, just in the course of the novel, every bit we learn more and more about him, we realize that he is snobby and prejudiced. In fact, it is probably because he knows this virtually himself that he is so eager to start the story he is telling with a long caption of what makes him the best possible narrator. Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my involvement in the bootless sorrows and short-winded elations of men. (one.four) This is how Nick sums upward Gatsby before we have even met him, before we've heard anything about his life. As you read the book, think almost how this information informs the manner you're responding to Gatsby'due south actions. How much of what we run across about Gatsby is colored by Nick'south predetermined conviction that Gatsby is a victim whose "dreams" were "preyed on"? It often feels similar Nick is relying on the reader's implicit trust of the narrator to spin Gatsby, brand him come across equally very sympathetic, and gloss over his flaws. "Well, it's a fine volume, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't await out the white race will be—will exist utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it'southward been proved." "Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This swain has worked out the whole affair. It's up to us who are the dominant race to spotter out or these other races will have command of things." (1.78-lxxx) Tom says this at dinner about a book he's really into. Tom is introduced as a smashing and a bigot from the very beginning, and his casual racism here is a good indicator of his callous disregard for homo life. We will see that his analogousness for being "dominant" comes into play whenever he interacts with other people. At the same time, yet, Tom tends to environment himself with those who are weaker and less powerful—probably the better to lord his physical, economic, and grade power over them. "I'grand glad information technology's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool—that'south the all-time thing a girl can exist in this earth, a beautiful little fool." (1.118) Daisy tells Nick that these are the showtime words she said afterwards giving birth to her daughter. This funny and depressing take on what it takes to succeed as a adult female in Daisy'due south world is a skilful lens into why she acts the way she does. Because she has never had to struggle for anything, because of her textile wealth and the fact that she has no ambitions or goals, her life feels empty and meaningless to her. In a way, this wish for her girl to be a "fool" is coming from a practiced place. Based on her own experiences, she assumes that a woman who is as well stupid to realize that her life is pointless will be happier than one (like Daisy herself) who is restless and filled with existential ennui (which is a fancy way of describing existence bored of one's existence). But I didn't phone call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the nighttime h2o in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could accept sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished zilch except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (1.152) The first time Nick sees him, Gatsby is making this one-half-prayerful gesture to the green calorie-free at the finish of Daisy's dock. This is our first glimpse of his obsession and his quest for the unobtainable. Gatsby makes this reaching motility several times throughout the volume, each time considering something he has strived for is just out of his grasp. Now, let'south hash out the way this chapter works with the novel's themes, and too which major character events are primal to have away from it. Order and Class. Right away, nosotros see the difference between West Egg, the town of the vulgar nouveau riche and those driven by appetite to become them, and East Egg, the place where the erstwhile coin elite lives in more classy luxury. Nick is hyper-aware of class differences when he has luncheon with Daisy and Tom. Everything about them, from their house and its decor, to the fashion Daisy and Jordan flop on the article of furniture in carefree boredom, shows how incredibly wealthy and pampered they are. At the aforementioned time, Daisy's half-joking remarks nigh her boredom and her cynicism show the darker side of having any you desire whenever you lot want it—there stops being much point to life. Love and Relationships. Nick has several insights into Tom and Daisy'due south dysfunctional marriage. Beginning, that Tom is having an affair and then indiscreet that everyone including Jordan knows about it. 2nd, that Daisy is conspicuously miserable about Tom'due south adulterous. But finally—and most importantly—that Daisy simply volition non leave no thing how terrible she feels most his beliefs. Their human relationship, however flawed, works for the two of them—something Nick figures out almost immediately when he sees them continuing next to each other as he leaves. This foreshadowing is crucial to go along in mind as nosotros lookout man Gatsby'due south attempt to win Daisy over. The Dark-green Calorie-free. This chapter marks our first run into with one of the most important symbols in the novel: the light-green light at the stop of Daisy's dock to which Gatsby assigns most indescribable value. This lite stands for everything that has been driving him over the past five years: the desire to exist with Daisy, the quest for enough money to marry her, and the delusion that she has been equally obsessed with him equally he has been with her. The American Dream. More universally, this want to obtain something that is forever just out of reach—and arguably can never really be reached—is truthful for many of the novel'south characters equally they pursue their versions of the American Dream (the idea that difficult work alone volition guarantee success). Wondering why the book starts the way it does? For example, what does Nick's dad'south advice mean? And what'south with that strange poem Fitzgerald uses every bit an epigraph? Bank check out the explanation of the novel'southward first. Did you know that this wasn't Fitzgerald's first choice of title? Learn more most the history and meaning of the title. Move on to the summary of Chapter 2 or become back to the overview of the whole novel. Want to ameliorate your Sabbatum score past 160 points or your Human action score past 4 points? We've written a guide for each exam about the top v strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: 
Quick Note on Our Citations
The Smashing Gatsby Chapter i Summary
The green light on Daisy's dock: an aurora borealis only Gatsby can see. Key Chapter i Quotes
I guess what I'1000 saying is that Jay Gatsby is a walking, talking demotivational poster. Chapter i Assay
Themes and Symbols
Attain exceeds grasp? Cheque. Unrealistic—nay, delusional—goal? Check. Yup, that pretty much sums up the American Dream as described past this novel. Crucial Graphic symbol Beats
What'due south Next?
Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English language Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving pupil admission to higher education.
Chapter One Great Gatsby Summary,
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