In case you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a bunch of extremely rich people made consistently terrible decisions while dressed impeccably, The Great Gatsby has you covered.
The story is narrated by Nick Carraway, a man whose primary talent is standing around, observing chaos, and renting a house next to it. He moves to Long Island (specifically West Egg, which sounds like a breakfast item but is actually full of “new money” people who just discovered wealth and aren’t subtle about it). Across the bay lies East Egg, home to “old money,” who are basically the same but with better posture.
Next door to Nick lives Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who throws enormous parties every weekend. Nobody knows who he is or where he got his money—rumours range from war hero to professional criminal to possibly a wizard. His guests don’t care. They show up uninvited, drink all his alcohol, break his furniture, and leave without saying thank you. Gatsby himself mostly stands in the corner, smiling like a man who spent millions just to host the world’s worst networking event.
Enter Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin, who lives across the water with her husband Tom. Daisy is charming, beautiful, and has the emotional stability of a soap bubble. Tom, on the other hand, is rich, arrogant, and about as pleasant as a tax audit. He also has a mistress, Myrtle, because apparently being wealthy includes a complimentary side of terrible behaviour.
Plot twist: Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy. Like, years-long, built-an-entire-persona-and-fortune obsessed. It turns out they had a romantic past, and Gatsby has spent all this time getting rich just to impress her—essentially the world’s most elaborate “hey, remember me?” text.
Gatsby enlists Nick to arrange a reunion with Daisy, which goes about as awkwardly as you’d expect when someone has constructed their entire life around a single person. But surprisingly, it works! Daisy and Gatsby rekindle their romance, mostly through staring dramatically at each other and ignoring reality.
Unfortunately, reality eventually shows up, uninvited like one of Gatsby’s party guests. Tom discovers the affair and responds in the only way he knows how: by being aggressively awful. A confrontation ensues, full of tension, ego, and zero self-awareness.
Things escalate quickly. Daisy, driving Gatsby’s car (because why not), accidentally hits Myrtle and drives off. Gatsby, ever the devoted romantic, takes the blame. Meanwhile, Myrtle’s husband, understandably upset, goes looking for revenge. And because misunderstandings are basically the engine of this novel, he ends up shooting Gatsby, who dies still believing in love, dreams, and apparently very poor judgment.
So what about all those party guests who once flooded Gatsby’s mansion? Gone. Vanished. Turns out free champagne doesn’t build lasting friendships. Nick, now thoroughly disillusioned with humanity, organizes Gatsby’s funeral, which is about as sparsely attended as you’d expect.
And Daisy and Tom? They quietly leave town, facing zero consequences. Because of course they do. Nick wraps things up by reflecting on the whole mess, concluding that chasing the past is a bit like trying to win a race while running backward—ambitious, poetic, and doomed.
And that’s The Great Gatsby: a story about love, wealth, illusions, and the dangers of throwing parties for people who won’t even stay to help clean up.
