The Great Gatsby

Made by: Thomas Vos

Class: AV2A

Content:
1. Synopsis
2. Characters
3. Message of the story
4. The movie adaptations

1. Summary
The story is about Nick Caraway an Aspiring writer who graduated from Yale. He also is a Great War
veteran from the Midwest. Nick moves to New York to become a bond salesman and he rents a small
house on Long Island in the village of West Egg. His little house stands next to a gigantic mansion
which is owned by the mysterious Mr. Gatsby. After he moved Nick went across the bay to East Egg
to visit his niece Daisy Buchannan and her husband Tom Buchannan. There is were Nick meets Jordan
Baker a young golfer and eventually Nicks love interest in the story. She reveals to Nick that Tom is
cheating on Daisy with a girl named Myrtle. When Tom and Nick go to New York a few days later he
meets Myrtle at an apartment in New York.
As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of his mysterious neighbors
parties. Once at the party Nick and Jordan actually meet the mysterious Mr. Gatsby. He is an aloof
and young man that fought in the same division as Nick in the Great War. Through Jordan, Nick
learns after the party that Gatsby knew Daisy through a change meeting in 1917. From that brief
meeting and casual encounters, Gatsby became in deeply in love with Daisy and still is. He became
obsessed with the idea of her and they world he saw her living in. Jordan tells Nick that the one
reason Gatsby bought that house is to be close to her because Daisy is right across the bay. She tells
that the reason he organized such extravagant parties is so that one day she would walk in and their
romance would rekindle.
I while later Nick and Gatsby after their meeting at the party really developed a close friendship and
Gatsby asks Nick for a favor. He asks Nick to invite Daisy for tea and that Gatsby would just casually
come by so that Gatsby could finally meet Daisy again. After an awkward reunion Gatsby and Daisy
develop a Affair and the weekly parties at the mansion stopped.
At a lunch at the Buchannan mansion Tom becomes really suspicious of the so called friendship his
wife has with Mr. Gatsby. Though Tom is himself involved in an affair with Myrtle he is outraged.
Tom suggests and forces everyone (Gatsby, Daisy, Nick and Jordan) to come with him to the Plaza
hotel. Once they are at the plaza hotel Tom confronts Gatsby and says that Daisy will never love him.
He also reveals that he has found out that all of Gatsbys money comes from bootlegging alcohol and
a slew of other illegal activities. After a big confrontation and fight Tom lets Gatsby and Daisy drive
back home. When a while later Tom, Nick and Jordan drive back they are being stopped at a crime
scene were they find out that Gatsbys car has hit Toms mistress, Myrtle. That same evening Nick
finds out that Daisy was driving his car and not Gatsby himself but he intends to take the blame.
Myrtles husband George has begun looking for the owner of the car because he suspected that
driver was also the secret lover of his wife and now also the killer. When he finds out it is Gatsbys car
he goes to Gatsbys mansion and shoots Gatsby and himself. Nick stages a small funeral but no one
attends not even Daisy who moved out of the country with Tom. Nick eventually moves back to the
Midwest, disgusted by the Eastern American lifestyle and Gatsbys lessons haunting him.

2. characters
In this book there are several characters that are very important and their stories are very connective
with the main story. Every character in this small story has their purpose, they are not fully fleshed
out but they bring characteristics to the surface that are the backbone of the story. They point Nick
Caraway and Jay Gatsby in the direction and give them a perspective on the events of the book. They
perspective is mainly for Nick because he is kind of the narrator, the fourth wall breaker that reflects
the most on Jay Gatsby.
The 5 main characters of the story are:
Nick Carraway: He graduated from Yale as a writer and is a World War 1 veteran. At the start of the
plot he just moved to New York. He now lives on long island at West Egg. He also serves as the firstperson narrator of the novel. Nick lives next to Gatsby and moved to New York to become a bond
salesman. Nick is an interesting character in my opinion because in the beginning of the novel he is a
very optimistic and likeable guy. In my opinion through the course of the story and through the
influence of Gatsby he changes. He becomes more sarcastic and more lost in his own thoughts he
crawls more into his own shell because of the mystery that is Jay Gatsby.
Jay Gatsby: A young, mysterious millionaire with weird business connections and networks. He is
originally from North Dakota. Jay Gatsby claims to have studied at Oxford College in England after
World War 1. During the war he was stationed at Army camp Taylor in Louisville. Within the period
he was in service as a soldier he had met Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker. In that period and
through the rest of his life he became in a way obsessed with Daisy Buchannan and she Is part of the
great mystery behind the Great Gatsby. In a non-clich way Jay Gatsby is my favorite character of the
book. Not in the way that he is so obsessed with Daisy Buchannan but in the way that he is so
inspiring. His smooth talk and how he build himself up and his many metaphoric items through the
story are for me very inspiring. He is very strong in making a presence and changing peoples
perspective for his own sake in a good but little selfish way.
Daisy Buchannan: They call her the golden girl in the novel and is said to be very self-absorbed and
shallow. She comes from Louisville, Kentucky and is Nicks second cousin. While having a romance
with Gatsby during the war she eventually marries Tom Buchannan. When Gatsby contacts her in the
novel and when we find out what the big secret is Daisy has to make a choice that is essential to the
story. Daisy is one of two of my least favorite characters because she never really finds a footing in
the narrative of the story in my opinion. She is being pushed around by every character that she
interacts with. Through the multiple acts of the story she is a totally different character and that is
very annoying to me because that change doesnt have a purpose because it is too much change.
Tom Buchannan: A millionaire who lives on long island at East Egg between all the old money types.
In the novel Tom is being described as a very imposing man with a very deep but loud voice. He is a
former football star from Yale and thats where he got to know Nick. Tom Is my second least favorite
characters from the novel just because he is kind of a jerk to his wife and everybody around him. It is
just because of these reasons and his actions in the story that I hate his character.
Jordan Baker: A long-time friend from Daisy Buchannan and Nicks girlfriend through most of the
novel. She is an amateur golfer with a shady reputation for untruthfulness. She is more of a plot
convenience character were she walks that fine line of important and a non-important character.
Jordan fills in the answers were Nick doesnt know them. She has a lot of these kind of moments
through the novel. I think that is the reason why I dont really have an opinion on her.

3. Message of the story

The Great Gatsby has multiple deeply intertwined meanings and if you read the book over and over
you will find a new meaning every time. Because it is such a strong story and they talk so much in
metaphors. When I read the book again I could in way connect these metaphors really well because
they all centre around the same subjects. They all centre around reaching for your goals, broaden
your horizon, selfishness. These subjects come forward because of how sarcastic Nick is and how
Gatsby wants to repeat his past with Daisy.
Another big element in the entire book is the green light at the end of Daisy and Tom Buchannans
dock. In the novel it is being described that Jay Gatsby lives right across the bay of Tom and Daisy
Buchannans hug mansion. At the end of their dock always shines a green light and Gatsby can see it
from his room. Gatsby sees this green light as Daisy because he is so obsessed with her. In the novel
it is being told that Gatsby just stares at the light for multiple evenings because it represents the idea
of him and Daisy being together. That is why he gives those parties and makes it all so grand because
he hopes that one day she walks in. The house, the money and the mystery all point to the green
light and the idea of that green light.
I love the Great Gatsby for its talk about the 1920s because everybody thinks it is the golden age or
the real American dream. But my opinion is that this novel really nails the whole 1920s idea which is
that people drank and party and make those years sound so pretty because the want to hide and
cover up for how messed up that time is. Jay Gatsby is the living embodiment of that idea. He
organizes all the parties and keeps his life so secret because of the shady way he gets his money and
because of his obsession with Daisy. That is why think the everybody should read the Great Gatsby
because it has such amazing messages through the story that when you reread the story you realize
they are there.

4. The movie adaptations

The Great Gatsby has seen many adaptations from tv to theatre plays to operas. But in this section I
want to talk about the multiple movie adaptations through the years. Every adaption is very different
from the other one because of the actors and because every director is very different. They all juggle
differently with the elements and subjects of the story and that is very interesting.
The adaptions that I talk about are the ones that I could actually watch. So the ones that I will be
discussing are the adaptations from 1979 and from 2013. Lets talk about the 1979 version first
because that one came first.
The 1979 adaptation of the Great Gatsby was in my opinion a very worthy adaptation but it hasnt
aged really well. Directed by Jack Clayton and starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern and
many others is really a relic if you look at the 2013 movie. With that I mean that if you look at the
story and movie separately you will see that they were kind of held back with the things they could
do with camera angles and computer effects and stuff like that. The one thing they did get right was
the story and off course they need to follow the book but it is a hard story to adapt to film. Even if
they were limited in the resources they had they story is very well adapted for the big screen. I
thought that the actors however fell flat in their performances but that can be my opinion because I
am such a fan of the characters and the story. Overall I thought it was a pretty descend adaptation of
the story and the importance it has.
The next adaptation I am gonna talk about is the 2013 movie from Baz Luhrmann and stars Leonardo
DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and many others. This is in my opinion the best adaptation
of the book to date. Even though it was released in 2013 the style of filmmaking Luhrmann used is
actually also a little bit dated. The way the movie was shot with the computer effects just doesnt
work with todays audience and filmmaking world. But besides that the rest of the movie for me was
solid. They work in a new twist of the story that Nick Caraway is being treated in a mental hospital
and that he talks in his therapy about Gatsby and his time in New York. This for me was a really
interesting choice but proofed to be a good choice. The casting of the movie was for me perfect with
Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby and Tobey Maguire as Nick. The casting for Daisy and Tom Buchannan
could have been different for me but I am not annoyed by that choice. Overall I think it is a good
movie that really looked at the 1920s and at the character of Jay Gatsby and adapted them properly.