The Great Gatsby Summary and Complete Study Guide

The Great Gatsby tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious self-made millionaire who throws extravagant parties on Long Island in the summer of 1922, all in an attempt to reunite with Daisy Buchanan, the woman he loved five years earlier. Narrated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's neighbor and Daisy's cousin, the novel explores themes of the American Dream, class division, obsessive love, and the impossibility of recapturing the past. It ends in tragedy when Gatsby's dreams collide with reality.

The green light at the end of Daisy's dock is the novel's most iconic symbol. For Gatsby, it represents his dreams, his hope of reuniting with Daisy, and everything he has worked toward. More broadly, it symbolizes the American Dream itself—always visible, always beckoning, but ultimately unreachable. When Gatsby finally reunites with Daisy, the light loses its magical significance, suggesting that the value of dreams lies in the yearning, not the attainment. The novel's famous closing lines connect the green light to humanity's universal tendency to reach for futures that forever recede before us.

Nick Carraway narrates The Great Gatsby. He is a Yale-educated World War I veteran from Minnesota who moves to West Egg, Long Island, to work in the bond business. Nick is Gatsby's next-door neighbor and Daisy Buchanan's second cousin. He claims to be one of the few honest people he knows, though his reliability as a narrator is debatable—he judges everyone while claiming not to, facilitates Gatsby and Daisy's affair, and clearly romanticizes Gatsby even while acknowledging his flaws. Fitzgerald uses Nick's subjective perspective to make readers question what they're being told.

The Valley of Ashes is a desolate industrial wasteland between West Egg and New York City, covered in gray ash from nearby factories. It represents the moral and social decay hidden beneath the surface of wealth and glamour. The working-class Wilsons live here, symbolizing those crushed by the American Dream's broken promises. Overlooking the valley is a faded billboard showing the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which George Wilson interprets as the eyes of God. The valley serves as a stark contrast to the opulence of the Eggs, showing that the wealthy's excess comes at the cost of others' devastation.

Gatsby defies simple classification. On one hand, his capacity for hope, his loyalty to Daisy (taking the blame for Myrtle's death), and his self-made rise from poverty are admirable. On the other hand, he earned his wealth through bootlegging and organized crime, constructed an entirely false identity, and his obsession with Daisy borders on delusional—he wants to erase five years of her life. Fitzgerald deliberately makes Gatsby sympathetic through Nick's admiring narration while revealing enough ugly truths to complicate that sympathy. Whether Gatsby is a tragic romantic or a dangerous obsessive depends on whether you trust Nick's rose-tinted view.

The Great Gatsby is considered the quintessential American novel because it captures fundamental truths about American culture that remain relevant nearly a century later. Fitzgerald's exploration of the American Dream's corruption, the unbridgeable gap between social classes, and the human tendency to idealize the past speaks to every generation. The prose itself is extraordinary—economical yet poetic, with images like the green light and the Valley of Ashes that have become part of the cultural lexicon. At under 50,000 words, it achieves a depth and complexity that most novels three times its length cannot match.