The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 Summary

1. The most crucial thing in the plot in chapter one is the moment during the dinner scene at the Buchanans where Mrs. Baker mentions that Tom has another woman beside Daisy. This is the most important scene because it feels heavy and Nick even describes it as if all subjects of conversation have faded and the room grew impenetrably silent. Some might say that the actual most important part of the plot is when Nick finally meets Gatsby by the end of the chapter, however, that is not the case because that moment doesn't add any information to the plot. Whereas, Tom's possible cheating says a lot about the fact that even divinely rich people might experience an essential lack as well as habitual boredom that propels them to do things that would

In this chapter, Nick learns a couple more things about Jordan Baker. First of all, a couple of small facts are mentioned such as her being a major golf star and enjoying large parties. Later on, after Nick and Jordan spend more time together, he learns that she is "incurably dishonest". He mentions this after he remembers a story of her allegedly cheating in a tournament and lying to her friend about a car she had borrowed.

5. Nick's nonjudgemental characteristic makes it hard to determine how he characterized the other guests at the party because he mostly just described them without any prevalent opinions. However, he did say that most of them behaved at the party as if they were in an amusement park. Many had started emotional altercations with their spouses upon being drunk, others had lots of fun dancing the night away. He also mentions a different group of people who saw these parties as opportunities and came there just to sell

At the end of the book, Nick mentions that Tom and Daisy were "careless people... they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made". At this point in the book, Nick is disgusted with both Tom and Daisy. This is because Daisy, despite loving Gatsby, never told Tom the truth about the night of the accident, and hasn't even come to Gatsby's funeral. Nick believed these people were empty because of their wealth and thought they were worth one another.

6. Nick says that "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgasmic future that year by year recedes before us". The green light in this novel is meant to represent Gatsby's hope to see Daisy again and to make his world perfect. However, by the end of the novel, when the green light lives on even after Gatsby's death, it is meant to symbolize humanity's hopes, ambitions, and desires. This means that even though people may not last forever, their ideals, passions, and goals might live on for a long time even after they're