Download The Great Gatsby: Introduction to Nick Carraway and the World of West Egg and East Egg and more Exams Business Accounting in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 1 Summary: The narrator of The Great Gatsby is a young man from Minnesota named Nick Carraway. He not only narrates the story but casts himself as the book’s author. He begins by commenting on himself, stating that he learned from his father to reserve judgment about other people, because if he holds them up to his own moral standards, he will misunderstand them. He characterizes himself as both highly moral and highly tolerant. He briefly mentions the hero of his story, Gatsby, saying that Gatsby represented everything he scorns, but that he exempts Gatsby completely from his usual judgments. Gatsby’s personality was nothing short of “gorgeous.” In the summer of 1922, Nick writes, he 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. Unlike the conservative, aristocratic East Egg, West Egg is home to the “new rich,” those who, having made their fortunes recently, have neither the social connections nor the refinement to move among the East Egg set. West Egg is characterized by lavish displays of wealth and garish poor taste. Nick’s comparatively modest West Egg house is next door to Gatsby’s mansion, a sprawling Gothic monstrosity. Nick is unlike his West Egg neighbors; whereas they lack social connections and aristocratic pedigrees, Nick graduated from Yale and has many connections on East Egg. One night, he drives out to East Egg to have dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, a former member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Tom, a powerful figure dressed in riding clothes, greets Nick on the porch. Inside, Daisy lounges on a couch with her friend Jordan Baker, a competitive golfer who yawns as though bored by her surroundings. Tom tries to interest the others in a book called The Rise of the Coloured Empires by a man named Goddard. The book espouses racist, white-supremacist attitudes that Tom seems to find convincing. Daisy teases Tom about the book but is interrupted when Tom leaves the room to take a phone call. Daisy follows him hurriedly, and Jordan tells Nick that the call is from Tom’s lover in New York. After an awkward dinner, the party breaks up. Jordan wants to go to bed becaue she has a golf tournament the next day. As Nick leaves, Tom and Daisy hint that they would like for him to take a romantic interest in Jordan. When Nick arrives home, he sees Gatsby for the first time, a handsome young man standing on the lawn with his arms reaching out toward the dark water. Nick looks out at the water, but all he can see is a distant green light that might mark the end of a dock. EVEN WITH THIS SUMMARY YOU WILL HAVE TO READ THE BOOK. WE SENT YOU ONE IN A PDF FORMAT. QUESTIONS: We meet Nick Carraway. He moves from Ohio in the Middle West to a.______ on Long Island in the summer of 1922., and enters the b._______ business. One evening, he goes to dinner with his cousin c.________ and her husband d._______, who is having a e._______. Nick meets f._______, the g._______. He realises that Daisy is h._______. On his return home, he notices his neighbour standing on the lawn, reaching out his hand towards a i.______. 1. Explain what Fitzgerald achieved by using Nick’s point of view to tell Gatsby’s story? 2. What do we learn about Nick Carraway in the introductory section of the novel? 3. In discussing East Egg and West Egg, Nick states: “To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.” Indicate what the “dissimilarities” might be. 4. Compare the homes of Nick, Gatsby, and the Buchanans. How does each home reflect the personality of its owner?
