The Great Gatsby…?

The Great Gatsby takes place in Long Island, New York in the early twentieth century.

The main characters are:

Nick Carraway – a young man who’s fairly well-off financially and has just moved from out-of-state to the West Egg district and lives next door to Jay Gatsby

Jay Gatsby/James Gatz – an incredibly wealthy guy who ostentatiously flaunts his wealth by hosting many many parties

Daisy Buchanan – Nick’s cousin who lives in East Egg. It turns out that a long time ago, she and Gatsby were in love, but now she’s married to Tom Buchanan

Tom Buchanan – Went to Yale with Nick

Myrtle Wilson – Tom’s mistress in New York who lives in a car mechanic’s place

The plot and conflicts are kinda confusing. There’s the old wealth v. new wealth. The old wealth are the established elite who are only rich now because it’s been passed down through the generations. The new wealth are people like Gatsby who struck it rich. Old wealth lives in East Egg, new wealth in West Egg. The driving plot of the story concerns Gatsby and Daisy and their old love. Gatsby invites Nick over one day for a party and then asks Nick to arrange a meeting with Daisy. Nick finds out that Gatsby and Daisy used to have a relationship and deduces that Gatsby’s extravagent parties are just to impress Daisy. When Gatsby and Daisy meet up, their old flame is rekindled. Meanwhile, Tom’s having an affair with Myrtle, but grow suspicious of his wife. This all leads up to a confrontation where Daisy is forced to choose between Tom and Gatsby and she ultimately chooses Tom, which brings up another conflict of money v. love. When they all drive back to Long Island (they were in the city), we discover that Gatsby’s car ran over Myrtle. Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband that Gatsby was the driver of the car. The husband leaps to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He commits suicide.

Hope this helps!

The setting is New York in the “roaring 20’s” (1920’s). The main characters are Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, (I forget these next few names) her husband (Tom?), the husband’s mistress (Myrtle?), and Daisy’s friend (?), who becomes Nick’s pseudo girlfriend.

The main conflict centers on Gatsby and the husband’s fight over Daisy, whom they both love. Gatsby has come to find her, and win her back, and the husband can’t stand to see himself lose such a valuable possession.

The other conflicts include the problem Nick has with how immoral and careless his wealthy friends are, and how he detests their lifestyle while still feeling for them.

Hope I helped.

edit:

I just remembered, but another conflict is the one Gatsby has with time. He loved and was loved by Daisy many years ago, and he couldn’t get her to marry him then because he was poor, but now he has come back wealthy, and he fights against the time that has passed. Daisy has a child now, and Gatsby just wants things to be like they were several years ago, and so his battle is with the events that have passed, and the little amount of time he has to win Daisy back.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Student Study Guides:

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Gatsby.html#Gatsby

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/8866/gatsby.html

http://www.freebooknotes.com/book.php3?id=164

http://www.antistudy.com/search.php?title=Great+Gatsby

http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmGreatGatsby02.asp

http://summarycentral.tripod.com/thegreatgatsby.htm

http://www.freebooknotes.com/page.php?link=http://www.novelguide.com/thegreatgatsby/index.html&book=164

Plot Overview

Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gatsby/summary.html

Yeah, best thing you can do is read it yourself. It’s a book that you must pay attention to and if you don’t, you’ll be lost. I read it for 10th grade English, a great book, the wording is what gets you a little dumbfounded. So when you read it don’t think too hard on it, just basically used your ‘imagination’.. that sounded so first grade.

Anyway, good luck.. You should like the book though.

first off, you need to read the book. second, sparknotes/cliffnotes are a lifesaver if you can’t (or choose not to) read the book.

Read it yourself for christ’s sake. No wonder you are in summer school.

sparknotes.com

www.sparknotes.com