The Great Gatsby Chapter 4 Summary
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Setting
Chapter four of the great Gatsby is set in New York at one of Gatsby’s parties.
Main Characters
Nick Carraway- is a young man from Minnesota who has come to New York after graduating from Yale and fighting in World War I. Nick is the neighbor of Jay Gatsby and the cousin of Daisy Buchanan.
Daisy Buchanan- she is the love of Jay Gatsby's life, the cousin of Nick Carraway, and the wife to Tom Buchanan.
Jordan Baker- she is a friend of Daisy's who becomes Nick's girlfriend. Jordan is beautiful and pleasant but does not inspire Nick to feel much more than a "tender curiosity" for her.
Plot Summary
Nick lists all of the people who attended Gatsby’s parties that summer, a roll call of the nation’s most wealthy and powerful people. He then describes a trip that he took to New York with Gatsby to eat lunch. As they drive to the city, Gatsby tells Nick about his past, but his story seems highly improbable. He claims, for instance, to be the son of deceased, wealthy parents from the Midwest. When Nick asks which Midwestern city he is from, Gatsby replies, "San Francisco.†Gatsby then lists a long and detailed set of accomplishments. Seeing Nick’s skepticism, Gatsby produces a medal from Montenegro and a picture of himself playing cricket at Oxford.
Gatsby’s car speeds through the valley of ashes and enters the city. When a policeman pulls Gatsby over for speeding, Gatsby shows him a white card, and the policeman apologizes for bothering him. In the city, Gatsby takes Nick to lunch and introduces him to Meyer Wolfsheim, who, he claims, was responsible for fixing the 1919 World Series. Wolfsheim is a shady character with underground business connections. He gives Nick the impression that the source of Gatsby’s wealth might be unsavory, and that Gatsby may even have ties to the sort of organized crime with which Wolfsheim is associated.
After lunch in New York, Nick sees Jordan Baker, who finally tells him the details of her mysterious conversation with Gatsby at the party. She relates that Gatsby told her that he is in love with Daisy Buchanan. According to Jordan, during the war, before Daisy married Tom, she was a beautiful young girl in Louisville, Kentucky, and all the military officers in town were in love with her. Daisy fell in love with Lieutenant Jay Gatsby, who was stationed at the base near her home. Though she chose to marry Tom after Gatsby left for the war, Daisy drank herself into numbness the night before her wedding, after she received a letter from Gatsby. Daisy has apparently remained faithful to her husband throughout their marriage, but Tom has not. Jordan adds that Gatsby bought his mansion in West Egg solely to be near Daisy.
Nick remembers the night he saw Gatsby stretching his arms out to the water and realizes that the green light he saw was the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. According to Jordan, Gatsby has asked her to convince Nick to arrange a reunion between Gatsby and Daisy. Because he is terrified that Daisy will refuse to see him, Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy to tea. Without Daisy’s knowledge, Gatsby intends to come to the tea at Nick’s house as well, surprising her and forcing her to see him.
Themes
- Class. The Great Gatsby portrays three different social classes: "old money" represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan, "new money" represented by Gatsby, and a class that might be called "no money" represented by George and Myrtle Wilson.
- The American dream. The Great Gatsby shows the tide turning east, as hordes flock to New York City seeking stock market fortunes. The Great Gatsby portrays this shift to symbolize the American Dream's corruption. It is no longer a vision of building a life, only about getting rich.