Context

Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island. It is the summer of 1922 and he has come to New York to learn about the bond business. West Egg is the unfashionable area of Long Island where the ‘new money’ live, those who have made their fortune quickly.

Jay Gatsby, Nick’s next-door neighbor lives in a Gothic mansion and is renowned for his lavish lifestyle with parties every Saturday night, which are the talk of the neighborhood.

Yale educated Nick has his own social connections in East Egg, the fashionable part of Long Island. He visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, who married a former classmate of his at Yale, Tom.  Nick is introduced to Jordan Baker, a beautiful golfer with whom Nick soon becomes romantically involved. Jordan reveals that Tom is having an affair with a Myrtle Wilson who lives in an area called The Ash Valley, which lies between Long Island and New York.  As the summer of 1922 progresses, Nick finds out more about Gatsby who has been in love with Daisy since their first meeting in 1917. His showman-like life is just to impress Daisy and Nick decides to act to rekindle the romance. He succeeds and an affair follows.  Tom, of course, finds out and confronts Gatsby at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Tom believes that his relationship with his wife is so special, beyond anything that Gatsby could imagine, because they have a baby daughter. Daisy soon realizes where her loyalties truly lie and Tom is so confident about his relationship with Daisy that he allows the two to return from New York to Long Island alone.

Gatsby’s car is involved in an accident where Myrtle, Tom’s lover is run over and killed. Although Daisy was driving the car, Gatsby covers for her and decides to take the blame for the accident and tells Nick about this.  Meanwhile Tom tells Myrtle’s husband George that the car involved in the accident belonged to Gatsby and George is convinced that the owner of the car is Myrtle’s lover. George goes to Gatsby’s home and finds him in his swimming pool where he shoots him dead, and then shoots himself.

Nick organizes the funeral for Gatsby attended by very few and then ends his relationship with Jordan, moving back to the mid-west in an attempt to escape the guilt and disgust he feels regarding the characters that surround Gatsby. Nick disapproves of the lifestyle led by Gatsby, but admires him for the way in which he pursued his dream.