Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Short Summary of The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby is a specific portrait of American society during the Roaring Twenties, yet tells the quintessential American story of a man rising from rags to riches only to find that whatever benefits his wealth affords, it cannot grant him the privileges of class and status. The central character is Jay Gatsby, a wealthy New Yorker of an undetermined occupation known mostly for the lavish parties he throws every weekend at his mansion but suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other clandestine activities. However, the narrator is Nick Carraway, a young mid-westerner from a prominent family who came to New York to enter the bond business. Carraway is involved in all of the events of the novel, yet does not play a significant active role; he is only a passive observer. When Nick arrives in New York, he soon visits his relatives, the Buchanans, who live in East Egg. Nick resides in the nearby (and less fashionable) West Egg, where Gatsby also lives. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan is from a prominent family from the mid-west. Tom is a former athlete at Yale, a vulgar and insecure man preoccupied with the decline of society and of class boundaries. It i