Chapter 1
As the first chapter begins, we are introduced the novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway. Nick is in the process of writing a book about his experiences on the East Coast of America, and in particular about his dealings with a man called Jay Gatsby. Nick tells us very little about his own origins, except that he is a descendent of the Dukes of Buccleuch.
Nick tells us that he has served in the First World War and that it has had a major impact on his life. His move to the East Coast of America was triggered by returning home to the Mid-West to find it a place changed from the one he remembered before he left.
In turn, Nick moves to West Egg. It is here that he – and the audience – first becomes aware of Jay Gatsby who lives in a mansion next to Nick. Nick describes West Egg as full of ‘white palaces’.
Nick recounts a visit to the house of Tom Buchanan, one of his old collegiate buddies from Yale, and Daisy, Nick’s cousin once removed. Buchanan in an archetypal alpha male: he is physically strong, extremely wealthy and hides a burning aggression; he also holds racist attitudes.
As the evening draws to a close, Nick catches his first glimpse of Gatsby; the enigmatic protagonist of the novel is staring, almost transfixed, by a green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock.
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