How to Read The Great Gatsby: Themes, Structure and Questions to Ask

What The Great Gatsby is, and why it is still read

F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925, when he was already known for fiction about young, wealthy Americans after the First World War. It is a short novel narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who moves to West Egg on Long Island in 1922 to sell bonds and finds himself next door to Jay Gatsby, a millionaire nobody can quite account for, who throws enormous parties. Across the bay, in older and grander East Egg, live Nick's cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan.

The book sold modestly in Fitzgerald's lifetime, and its reputation grew after his death in 1940. Students meet it now because it packs so much into so few pages: the 1920s boom, Prohibition and bootlegging, the gap between inherited and new money, and the question of whether anyone can remake themselves completely. It also tests two skills literature classes care about: reading a narrator critically and tracing an image across a book.

How The Great Gatsby is structured, chapter by chapter

The novel moves forward through one summer and into the autumn, but Gatsby's past arrives in pieces: rumors at the parties, his own polished account in chapter 4, Jordan Baker's story of Louisville in 1917, the truth about James Gatz and Dan Cody in chapter 6, and the rest after the accident in chapter 8. You assemble Gatsby as Nick does, out of order.

Chapter 5, where Gatsby and Daisy meet again, sits at the exact center of the nine. Before it, everything builds toward the reunion; after it, Daisy is appalled by the one party she attends in chapter 6, Gatsby closes his house to guests, and chapter 7 puts Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, Nick and Jordan in one hotel room.

The main themes of The Great Gatsby

Each theme comes with the scenes that show it; quote those scenes, not summaries. The guide to doing a close reading shows how to work a single passage hard.

Key characters and how they connect

The cast is small, and almost everyone is tied to at least two others by love, money or a secret. Track those ties rather than memorizing descriptions.

• Nick Carraway: the narrator, a Yale graduate from the Midwest; part witness, part go-between, less neutral than he claims.
• Jay Gatsby: born James Gatz; a war veteran with a fortune of uncertain origin, who throws parties hoping Daisy will wander into one.
• Daisy Buchanan: Nick's cousin and Gatsby's love from 1917, married to Tom; charming, and unwilling to give up her safety.
• Tom Buchanan: Daisy's wealthy husband, a former Yale football star; unfaithful, violent and contemptuous of anyone outside his class.
• Jordan Baker: a golfer and Daisy's friend, who tells Nick the 1917 story and becomes his on-and-off companion.
• Myrtle Wilson: Tom's mistress, who wants out of the valley of ashes and dies on the road outside her husband's garage.
• George Wilson: Myrtle's worn-out husband, who kills Gatsby believing he was her lover and her killer.
• Meyer Wolfsheim: Gatsby's associate, said to have fixed the 1919 World Series, and a clue to where the money comes from.

How to read The Great Gatsby: a four-sitting plan

The novel is short enough for a weekend, but four planned sittings give you time to notice what Nick knows at each stage. The notes become the raw material for an essay; the guide to writing a literary analysis shows how to turn them into an argument.

1. 1Before you start, read the first two pages slowly and note what Nick says about judging people; you will come back to it.
2. 2Sitting one, chapters 1 to 3: list each place (East Egg, West Egg, the valley of ashes, New York) and who belongs where.
3. 3Sitting two, chapters 4 to 6: keep two columns, one for what Gatsby says about his past and one for what the book later confirms.
4. 4Sitting three, chapter 7 alone: mark every mention of heat, and note who drives which car on each leg of the trip.
5. 5Sitting four, chapters 8 and 9: note who comes to Gatsby's funeral, then read the first two pages beside the last two.
6. 6Pick one image, such as the green light, the eyes or the yellow car, and list every chapter where it appears; that list is an essay plan.

Questions to ask about The Great Gatsby

Use these for discussion, essay planning or self-testing; a good answer names a specific scene.

• How reliable is Nick, given that he reserves judgment in chapter 1 and judges almost everyone afterward?
• Why does the novel give you Gatsby's past out of order, from several tellers, instead of in one flashback?
• Is Gatsby in love with Daisy, or with what she stands for?
• Why does Daisy stay with Tom after the Plaza Hotel, and was it decided before that afternoon?
• Why does Gatsby let himself be blamed for Myrtle's death, and what does that say about him?
• What do the people who stay away from Gatsby's funeral reveal about his parties?
• How does Nick's relationship with Jordan Baker mirror the main story?
• Is the novel a criticism of the American Dream, or a lament that it could not survive?

Choosing an edition of The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby entered the public domain in the United States in 2021, and many new editions have appeared since. For study, choose one with notes on what a modern reader misses: Prohibition and the drugstores Tom accuses Gatsby of running, the 1919 World Series, and the Oxford study open to American officers after the war.

Cite chapter as well as page. Fitzgerald considered other titles, including Trimalchio in West Egg, and an early draft has been published separately as Trimalchio. In translation, compare one passage of Nick's narration in two versions; his tone, admiring and judging at once, is a good test of a translation.