Summary Of The Great Gatsby

Despite being the title of the book, Mr. Gatsby does not appear during the first two chapters where many characters have already been introduced to the reader. The narrator of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway, claims that at a younger age he learned to reserve all judgments, but in chapter three when he finally meets Mr. Gatsby, Nick seems to immediately begin to make assumption about him even before meeting Gatsby face to face. Nick along with the other guests who attend Gatsby lavish and extravagant party converse about the mysterious nature of Gatsby because many people show up to his parties, yet few have actually met him personally, and they trade bizarre rumors of Gatsby, none of which seem to hold. In the end, …show more content…
As soon as Nick arrives at the party, he tries to seek out the host, Gatsby, whose whereabouts no guest seems to know, and his enigmatic nature is incepted. After being unsuccessful in locating Gatsby, Nick walks toward the cocktail bar lonely and purposelessly where he encounters Jordan Baker. As they settle down at a table with two other women and three men, the topic of Gatsby is immediately brought up again. Initially Gatsby is spoken of as a generous and kind man who immediately sent Lucille one of the guest a very expensive replacement gown for one which she torn at one of his parties. However, someone raises the question of his motives for …show more content…
Upon finding Owl Eyes, a drunk man hoping to sober up by looking at books, Nick and Jordan are immediately shown Gatsby extensive collection of books which symbolize his high level of education. Owl Eyes goes on to show that they are authentic “Absolutely real-have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard…It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too-didn’t cut the pages” (45-46). Though the authenticity of the books would signal that Gatsby is a true scholar and very prestigious in his studies, this ignores the last piece of evidence “didn’t cut the pages,” which needs to be further explored in order to achieve a more accurate judgment of Gatsby. Owl Eyes was not invited to this party, but rather he was brought, so he is drawing this conclusion that Gatsby is scholarly solely off of the books in his library. However, on closer inspection, one can see that these books despite being real have not been read. Owl Eyes points out that the pages are not cut meaning Gatsby is yet to read up to that, thus the books are not fulfilling their purpose as books to be read. These elite books instead are doing nothing but put