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The Great Gatsby is a portrait of American society during the Roaring Twenties. It features Jay Gatsby, who journeys from rags to riches only to find that his wealth does not afford him the privileges of those born into the upper class. Gatsby hosts lavish parties at his ostentatious Gothic mansion in West Egg, near New York City. West Egg is home to the nouveau riche, or “new rich," people who lack established social connections and vulgarly flaunt their wealth. Gatsby is suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other underworld activities.

Gatsby’s neighbor, Nick Carraway, narrates the novel. Nick comes from a prominent midwestern family, but has been educated at Yale and moved to New York to enter the bond business. Nick, like Gatsby, resides in West Egg.

Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The Buchanans live in the more fashionable and posh Long Island district of East Egg. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale, and comes from a privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom.

The Great Gatsby is a portrait of American society during the Roaring Twenties. It features Jay Gatsby, who journeys from rags to riches only to find that his wealth does not afford him the privileges of those born into the upper class. Gatsby hosts lavish parties at his ostentatious Gothic mansion in West Egg, near New York City. West Egg is home to the nouveau riche, or “new rich," people who lack established social connections and vulgarly flaunt their wealth.

Gatsby’s neighbor, Nick Carraway, narrates the novel. Nick comes from a prominent midwestern family, but has been educated at Yale and moved to New York to enter the bond business. Nick, like Gatsby, resides in West Egg.

Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The Buchanans live in the more fashionable and posh Long Island district of East Egg. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale, and comes from a privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom.

At the Buchanans’, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful but cold and cynical young woman who is a golf professional. The two later become romantically involved. Jordan tells Nick that Tom has been having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, a woman who lives in the valley of ashes—an industrial wasteland outside of New York City. Later that night, Nick goes home to West Egg where he sees Gatsby from his backyard gazing at a mysterious green light across the bay. Gatsby stretches his arms out toward the light, as though to catch and hold it.

Soon after, Tom decides to take Nick to New York City. They stop first at the garage owned by George Wilson, the husband of Myrtle Wilson. Tom tells Myrtle to join them later in the city. Nearby, on an enormous billboard, a pair of bespectacled blue eyes stares down at the barren landscape. These eyes once served as an advertisement; now, they merely brood over the valley of ashes.

In the city, Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to the apartment in Morningside Heights where he maintains his affair. There, they have a lurid party. The more Myrtle drinks, the more aggressive she becomes; she taunts Tom about Daisy, and he reacts by breaking her nose. The party, unsurprisingly, comes to an abrupt end.

Nick attends a lavish party at Gatsby's mansion, where he runs into Jordan. At the party, few of the attendees know Gatsby; even fewer were formally invited. Nick had never met Gatsby prior, but now sees him as a strikingly handsome, slightly dandified young man who affects an English accent.
At this point in the novel, Gatsby's origins are unclear. He claims to come from a wealthy San Francisco family, and says that he was educated at Oxford and claims to be a decorated veteran of the Great War.

At a lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer Wolfsheim, who is a notorious criminal; many believe that he is responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series.

Gatsby mysteriously avoids the Buchanans, but asks Nick to arrange a meeting between himself and Daisy. Upon their meeting, Gatsby gives Daisy a tour of his mansion, desperately exhibiting his wealth. Despite his stilted demeanor, the two begin an affair.

Jordan has explained to Nick that Gatsby first fell in love with Daisy when they met in Louisville before the war.