In the Midwestern City Where Their Home Is, How Well Known Is Nick's Family?
In The Groovy Gatsby, Chapter ane, the table is set, both figuratively and literally. Figurative table setting includes coming together our narrator, Nick Carraway, and getting a sense of the wealthy Long Island neighborhood where the novel will take place. Literal tabular array setting—well, that's the dinner Nick has with his cousin Daisy, her husband Tom, and their friend (and Nick's eventual love interest) Hashemite kingdom of jordan Bakery.
Keep reading to learn more about what happens in this chapter, understand how it touches on the novel'southward main themes, and run across close readings of key quotations!
Quick Note on Our Citations
Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this organisation since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only piece of work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via affiliate and paragraph in your book, you tin can either eyeball it (Paragraph i-50: first of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: stop of affiliate), or apply the search office if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.
The Great Gatsby Chapter one Summary
Nick Carraway introduces himself every bit a nonjudgmental observer of other people who has recently returned to his home in a wealthy Midwestern family from the East Coast later on a devastating disappointment. This disappointment is the story he is about to tell, which happened two years before.
Later graduating from Yale, and fighting in WWI, Nick decides to become a bail trader and moves near NYC.
Nick rents a house in West Egg, a Long Isle suburb that is less fashionable than East Egg, which lies across the Long Isle Sound. His tiny, cheap bungalow is next to Gatsby's enormous, tacky mansion.
Nick goes to have dinner with his cousin Daisy and her extremely rich husband Tom Buchanan, whom he knows slightly from Yale. Their house is overwhelmingly decorated. Tom is gruff, aggressive, and physically intimidating. Daisy and her friend Jordan Bakery are wearing white dresses that wait like balloons in the breeze. Daisy laughs a lot and speaks in a depression, extremely highly-seasoned vox. Their chat is scattered and shallow, and anybody talks over each other.
During dinner, Tom suddenly reveals himself to exist a racist, influenced by a book that argues that the "dominant white race" is in danger of being overwhelmed past minorities. The phone rings for Tom. After he goes to answer it, Daisy seems upset and leaves the room. Jordan tells Nick that the phone call is from Tom's mistress in New York. The residue of dinner is tense and awkward and makes Nick experience similar he should phone call the law.
After dinner, Daisy takes Nick aside and tells him that she has become cynical. Nick asks Daisy well-nigh her ii-year-old daughter. Daisy doesn't seem to take any maternal feelings. When she found out that she had given nascency to a daughter, Daisy's first reaction was to cry. She hopes her daughter will grow up to be a "beautiful fool" (1.118). Despite the fact that Daisy seems to be baring her soul to him, Nick thinks this brandish of misery is some kind of an act.
Daisy and Nick rejoin Tom and Jordan, and Nick realizes that Hashemite kingdom of jordan is a relatively famous professional golfer. He's seen her in magazines and has heard an unpleasant story almost her.
Later on Hashemite kingdom of jordan goes to bed, Daisy thing-of-factly tells Nick to start a romantic relationship with Jordan. Tom, meanwhile, tells Nick non to believe anything Daisy told him when she took him aside. Tom and Daisy ask Nick about a rumor that he was engaged. Nick denies information technology. This rumor is actually one of the reasons he has come East.
Nick leaves the firm confused about why Daisy doesn't only have her daughter and leave Tom. However, he can see that she has no intention of doing and so.
Back at his house, Nick sees the figure of Gatsby outside his mansion. Nick thinks almost introducing himself, but refrains when he sees Gatsby stretching his arms out toward a greenish calorie-free on the opposite shore of the bay.
The green light on Daisy'due south dock: an aurora borealis only Gatsby can see.
Key Chapter 1 Quotes
In my younger and more than vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind e'er since.
"Whenever you experience like criticizing whatsoever ane," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this globe haven't had the advantages that y'all've had." (1.1-2)
The opening lines of the book color how we empathise Nick's description of everything that happens in the novel. Nick wants to nowadays himself as a wise, objective, nonjudgmental observer, but in the grade of the novel, every bit we larn more and more about him, we realize that he is bossy and prejudiced. In fact, it is probably because he knows this about himself that he is so eager to start the story he is telling with a long explanation of what makes him the best possible narrator.
Gatsby turned out all right at the terminate; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily airtight out my interest in the bootless sorrows and short-winded elations of men. (1.4)
This is how Nick sums upward Gatsby before we take fifty-fifty met him, before nosotros've heard annihilation about his life. As you read the book, remember about how this data informs the way you lot're responding to Gatsby's deportment. How much of what we run into about Gatsby is colored by Nick'southward predetermined conviction that Gatsby is a victim whose "dreams" were "preyed on"? It often feels like Nick is relying on the reader'southward implicit trust of the narrator to spin Gatsby, make him come across every bit very sympathetic, and gloss over his flaws.
"Well, information technology's a fine book, and everybody ought to read information technology. The thought is if we don't expect out the white race will be—will exist utterly submerged. It'south all scientific stuff; it's been proved."
"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. Information technology's upwardly to united states who are the dominant race to lookout out or these other races will have control of things." (1.78-fourscore)
Tom says this at dinner near a book he's really into. Tom is introduced every bit a bully and a bigot from the very get-go, and his casual racism hither is a proficient indicator of his callous condone for man life. Nosotros will see that his affinity for being "ascendant" comes into play whenever he interacts with other people. At the same time, yet, Tom tends to environs himself with those who are weaker and less powerful—probably the better to lord his physical, economic, and class power over them.
"I'grand glad it's a daughter. And I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl tin exist in this world, a beautiful little fool." (1.118)
Daisy tells Nick that these are the first words she said after giving nativity to her daughter.
This funny and depressing take on what information technology takes to succeed as a woman in Daisy's world is a good lens into why she acts the way she does. Because she has never had to struggle for anything, because of her fabric 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 daughter to exist a "fool" is coming from a proficient place. Based on her own experiences, she assumes that a woman who is too 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 style of describing being bored of i's beingness).
But I didn't telephone call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to exist alone—he stretched out his arms toward the night water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished zilch except a single green low-cal, minute and far abroad, that might have been the stop of a dock. (1.152)
The offset fourth dimension Nick sees him, Gatsby is making this half-prayerful gesture to the green lite at the cease of Daisy's dock. This is our outset glimpse of his obsession and his quest for the unobtainable. Gatsby makes this reaching motion several times throughout the volume, each time because something he has strived for is just out of his grasp.
I guess what I'grand saying is that Jay Gatsby is a walking, talking demotivational poster.
Chapter one Analysis
Now, let's discuss the way this chapter works with the novel'south themes, and also which major character events are key to have away from it.
Themes and Symbols
Social club and Class. Right away, we come across the departure between West Egg, the town of the vulgar nouveau riche and those driven by ambition to become them, and Due east Egg, the place where the old money aristocracy lives in more swish 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 way Daisy and Jordan flop on the article of furniture in carefree colorlessness, shows how incredibly wealthy and pampered they are. At the same time, Daisy's half-joking remarks about her boredom and her cynicism show the darker side of having whatsoever you want whenever you want information technology—there stops being much point to life.
Dear and Relationships. Nick has several insights into Tom and Daisy'due south dysfunctional marriage. First, that Tom is having an affair then indiscreet that everyone including Jordan knows about it. Second, that Daisy is clearly miserable about Tom's adulterous. Just finally—and most importantly—that Daisy just will not leave no matter how terrible she feels well-nigh his behavior. Their relationship, all the same flawed, works for the ii of them—something Nick figures out almost immediately when he sees them standing next to each other as he leaves. This foreshadowing is crucial to keep in mind as we sentry Gatsby's try to win Daisy over.
The Greenish Light. This chapter marks our first encounter with 1 of the nigh important symbols in the novel: the green light at the end of Daisy'due south dock to which Gatsby assigns nearly indescribable value. This light stands for everything that has been driving him over the past 5 years: the desire to be with Daisy, the quest for enough money to ally her, and the delusion that she has been as obsessed with him equally he has been with her.
The American Dream. More universally, this desire to obtain something that is forever just out of reach—and arguably can never actually be reached—is true for many of the novel'due south characters equally they pursue their versions of the American Dream (the idea that hard piece of work alone will guarantee success).
Accomplish exceeds grasp? Check. Unrealistic—nay, delusional—goal? Cheque. Yup, that pretty much sums up the American Dream as described past this novel.
Crucial Character Beats
- Nick moves from the Midwest to Due west Egg, adjacent door to Gatsby. He's ill of his boring Midwestern life and wants to recapture some of the excitement of fighting in WWI.
- Nick has dinner with Daisy and Tom. They are rich, and their lives seem totally meaningless. Tom displays his racist ideas and Daisy displays a full lack of maternal feelings.
- Nick learns that Tom is having an affair, he figures out that Daisy is unhappy but will never get out Tom, and he meets Jordan Baker, who will go his romantic interest.
What'due south Next?
Wondering why the book starts the way it does? For instance, what does Nick'south dad'due south advice mean? And what's with that foreign poem Fitzgerald uses as an epigraph? Cheque out the explanation of the novel's beginning.
Did you know that this wasn't Fitzgerald's start selection of championship? Larn more nearly the history and meaning of the title.
Movement on to the summary of Chapter 2 or go back to the overview of the whole novel.
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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English language at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English language Literature at Columbia. She is passionate almost improving student access to higher didactics.
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