Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner bondsman, rents a cottage in West Egg next to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. Drawn into the world of his cousin Daisy and her brutish husband Tom, Nick becomes the confidant for Gatsby's singular, five-year obsession: to win back Daisy and recreate a perfect past, a dream that ultimately collides with reality and ends in violence.
Tom launched into a violent rant about The Rise of the Coloured Empires, warning that the white race would be submerged unless Nordics like them defended civilization. Daisy winked at me, whispering “Listen,” and Miss Baker began to suggest California, but Tom overrode her. As he declared their racial superiority, the telephone rang. He excused himself, and Daisy leaned toward me, conspiratorial: “I’ll tell you a family secret—about the butler’s nose.” She spun a tale of a silver polisher whose nose was ruined by labor, then fell silent as Tom returned. The mood had shifted; Daisy forced gaiety, remarking on a nightingale outside. Tom miserably suggested showing me the stables, but the phone rang again. He went inside, and Jordan quietly told me, “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” The second call confirmed it.
After Tom returned, dinner resumed awkwardly. Later, inside, Jordan read aloud from the Saturday Evening Post to Tom. She announced it was ten o’clock and time for bed, noting her tournament tomorrow. I recognized her from sports photographs. Daisy joked about arranging a marriage between us. Tom disapproved of Jordan’s independence, but Daisy defended her, recalling their Louisville girlhood. Tom abruptly asked if Nick and Daisy had had a heart-to-heart on the veranda; Daisy mockingly claimed they’d discussed the Nordic race.
When I prepared to leave, they stood in the doorway, a cheerful square of light. Daisy suddenly called me back. “We heard you were engaged to a girl out West,” she said. Tom corroborated. I denied it, explaining that gossip was one reason I’d left the Midwest. Their interest touched me, making them less remote, yet I felt confused and slightly disgusted as I drove away. Daisy showed no intention of fleeing with a child; Tom’s affair seemed less shocking than his recent depression over a book. Something was nibbling at his confidence.
It was deep summer, the air thick with the sound of frogs. I parked my car and sat on a grass roller, watching a cat’s silhouette cross the moonlight. Then I saw a figure on Gatsby’s lawn—Gatsby himself, hands in pockets, gazing at the stars. There was a deliberate calm in his posture, as if claiming his share of the heavens. I considered calling to him; Jordan had mentioned him at dinner. But he raised his arms toward the dark water in a curious, trembling gesture. I followed his gaze and saw a single green light, minute and far away, at the end of a dock. When I looked back, Gatsby had vanished into the night, leaving me alone in the unquiet darkness, the green light burning across the water.
Having examined the core concepts, we now turn to their practical implementation.
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