What Does Nick Learn From Jordan When Tom Is Called To The Phone

In The Great Gatsby, Affiliate one, the table is set, both figuratively and literally. Figurative table setting includes meeting our narrator, Nick Carraway, and getting a sense of the wealthy Long Island neighborhood where the novel will accept place. Literal table setting—well, that'southward the dinner Nick has with his cousin Daisy, her married man Tom, and their friend (and Nick's eventual love involvement) Hashemite kingdom of jordan Baker.

Keep reading to learn more about what happens in this chapter, understand how it touches on the novel's main themes, and see close readings of key quotations!

Quick Annotation on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this organization since there are many editions of Gatsby, then using folio numbers would merely work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via affiliate and paragraph in your volume, you can either eyeball information technology (Paragraph 1-fifty: beginning of chapter; 50-100: centre of chapter; 100-on: terminate of chapter), or utilise the search part if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

The Great Gatsby Chapter ane Summary

Nick Carraway introduces himself as a nonjudgmental observer of other people who has recently returned to his home in a wealthy Midwestern family unit from the Eastward Coast after a devastating thwarting. This disappointment is the story he is well-nigh to tell, which happened two years before.

After graduating from Yale, and fighting in WWI, Nick decides to become a bond trader and moves most NYC.

Nick rents a firm in West Egg, a Long Island suburb that is less fashionable than East Egg, which lies across the Long Island Sound. His tiny, cheap bungalow is side by side to Gatsby's enormous, tacky mansion.

Nick goes to accept dinner with his cousin Daisy and her extremely rich husband Tom Buchanan, whom he knows slightly from Yale. Their house is overwhelmingly decorated. Tom is gruff, aggressive, and physically intimidating. Daisy and her friend Hashemite kingdom of jordan Baker are wearing white dresses that look like balloons in the breeze. Daisy laughs a lot and speaks in a low, extremely appealing vocalism. Their conversation is scattered and shallow, and everyone talks over each other.

During dinner, Tom of a sudden reveals himself to be a racist, influenced by a volume that argues that the "dominant white race" is in danger of existence overwhelmed past minorities. The phone rings for Tom. After he goes to answer information technology, Daisy seems upset and leaves the room. Jordan tells Nick that the phone call is from Tom's mistress in New York. The rest of dinner is tense and awkward and makes Nick feel like he should call the police force.

After dinner, Daisy takes Nick aside and tells him that she has become cynical. Nick asks Daisy about her ii-year-old girl. Daisy doesn't seem to have any maternal feelings. When she plant out that she had given birth to a daughter, Daisy's first reaction was to cry. She hopes her girl will abound up to be a "cute fool" (1.118). Despite the fact that Daisy seems to exist baring her soul to him, Nick thinks this display of misery is some kind of an act.

Daisy and Nick rejoin Tom and Hashemite kingdom of jordan, and Nick realizes that Jordan is a relatively famous professional golfer. He's seen her in magazines and has heard an unpleasant story virtually her.

After Hashemite kingdom of jordan goes to bed, Daisy matter-of-factly tells Nick to kickoff a romantic relationship with Jordan. Tom, meanwhile, tells Nick not to believe annihilation Daisy told him when she took him aside. Tom and Daisy enquire Nick about a rumor that he was engaged. Nick denies it. This rumor is actually one of the reasons he has come East.

Nick leaves the house confused virtually why Daisy doesn't merely have her daughter and leave Tom. Even so, he tin see that she has no intention of doing then.

Back at his business firm, Nick sees the figure of Gatsby outside his mansion. Nick thinks about introducing himself, just refrains when he sees Gatsby stretching his arms out toward a dark-green light on the opposite shore of the bay.

The light-green light on Daisy'due south dock: an aurora borealis simply Gatsby tin meet.

Key Chapter ane Quotes

In my younger and more vulnerable years my begetter gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my listen ever since.

"Whenever you lot feel similar criticizing any i," he told me, "just retrieve that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." (1.ane-2)

The opening lines of the volume colour how we understand Nick'due south clarification of everything that happens in the novel. Nick wants to nowadays himself every bit a wise, objective, nonjudgmental observer, but in the course of the novel, as nosotros acquire more than and more about him, we realize that he is snobby and prejudiced. In fact, it is probably considering he knows this about himself that he is so eager to start the story he is telling with a long explanation of what makes him the best possible narrator.

Gatsby turned out all right at the terminate; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul grit floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my involvement in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men. (1.four)

This is how Nick sums upwardly Gatsby before we have even met him, earlier nosotros've heard anything most his life. As you read the book, think virtually how this information informs the way you're responding to Gatsby'south actions. How much of what we see about Gatsby is colored past Nick'south predetermined conviction that Gatsby is a victim whose "dreams" were "preyed on"? Information technology often feels similar Nick is relying on the reader's implicit trust of the narrator to spin Gatsby, make him come across as very sympathetic, and gloss over his flaws.

"Well, it'due south a fine volume, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it'south been proved."

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole matter. Information technology'south up to us who are the dominant race to sentry out or these other races will have control of things." (1.78-eighty)

Tom says this at dinner about a book he's actually into. Tom is introduced as a groovy and a bigot from the very starting time, and his coincidental racism here is a proficient indicator of his draconian disregard for human life. We will see that his affinity for being "ascendant" comes into play whenever he interacts with other people. At the same time, all the same, Tom tends to environs himself with those who are weaker and less powerful—probably the better to lord his physical, economic, and form power over them.

"I'm glad it's a daughter. And I hope she'll exist a fool—that'southward the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful fiddling fool." (ane.118)

Daisy tells Nick that these are the first words she said after giving birth to her girl.

This funny and depressing accept on what it takes to succeed as a woman in Daisy'due south world is a proficient lens into why she acts the way she does. Because she has never had to struggle for anything, considering of her cloth wealth and the fact that she has no ambitions or goals, her life feels empty and meaningless to her. In a way, this wish for her girl to be a "fool" is coming from a expert place. Based on her own experiences, she assumes that a woman who is too stupid to realize that her life is pointless will be happier than i (like Daisy herself) who is restless and filled with existential ennui (which is a fancy way of describing being bored of i's beingness).

Only I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his artillery toward the nighttime h2o in a curious mode, and far equally I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the terminate of a dock. (i.152)

The outset time Nick sees him, Gatsby is making this half-prayerful gesture to the dark-green light at the end of Daisy's dock. This is our beginning glimpse of his obsession and his quest for the unobtainable. Gatsby makes this reaching movement several times throughout the volume, each time because something he has strived for is merely out of his grasp.

I guess what I'm maxim is that Jay Gatsby is a walking, talking demotivational poster.

Affiliate 1 Analysis

Now, permit's discuss the style this chapter works with the novel's themes, and besides which major graphic symbol events are key to have away from it.

Themes and Symbols

Guild and Class. Right away, nosotros see the difference between W Egg, the town of the vulgar nouveau riche and those driven by appetite to become them, and Due east Egg, the identify where the one-time money elite lives in more than swish luxury. Nick is hyper-aware of class differences when he has dejeuner with Daisy and Tom. Everything almost them, from their business firm and its decor, to the way Daisy and Jordan flop on the furniture in carefree colorlessness, shows how incredibly wealthy and pampered they are. At the same time, Daisy'due south half-joking remarks about her boredom and her cynicism evidence the darker side of having any y'all want whenever you want information technology—in that location stops beingness much point to life.

Honey and Relationships. Nick has several insights into Tom and Daisy'south dysfunctional marriage. Start, that Tom is having an affair so indiscreet that everyone including Jordan knows about information technology. Second, that Daisy is conspicuously miserable nigh Tom's cheating. But finally—and most importantly—that Daisy merely volition non leave no matter how terrible she feels about his behavior. Their relationship, even so flawed, works for the 2 of them—something Nick figures out almost immediately when he sees them standing next to each other as he leaves. This foreshadowing is crucial to keep in mind as we lookout man Gatsby's effort to win Daisy over.

The Greenish Light. This chapter marks our get-go encounter with ane of the most important symbols in the novel: the greenish light at the terminate of Daisy's dock to which Gatsby assigns virtually indescribable value. This light stands for everything that has been driving him over the by 5 years: the want to be with Daisy, the quest for enough coin to marry her, and the delusion that she has been as obsessed with him as he has been with her.

The American Dream. More than universally, this desire to obtain something that is forever simply out of reach—and arguably tin can never really be reached—is truthful for many of the novel's characters as they pursue their versions of the American Dream (the idea that hard work alone will guarantee success).

Achieve exceeds grasp? Bank check. Unrealistic—nay, delusional—goal? Cheque. Yup, that pretty much sums upwards the American Dream every bit described by this novel.

Crucial Character Beats

Nick moves from the Midwest to West Egg, next door to Gatsby. He'southward sick of his deadening Midwestern life and wants to recapture some of the excitement of fighting in WWI.

Nick has dinner with Daisy and Tom. They are rich, and their lives seem totally meaningless. Tom displays his racist ideas and Daisy displays a total lack of maternal feelings.

Nick learns that Tom is having an matter, he figures out that Daisy is unhappy just will never go out Tom, and he meets Jordan Baker, who will become his romantic involvement.

What'southward Next?

Wondering why the volume starts the way it does? For example, what does Nick's dad's communication hateful? And what's with that strange verse form Fitzgerald uses as an epigraph? Cheque out the explanation of the novel's beginning.

Did you know that this wasn't Fitzgerald'south showtime choice of title? Learn more than nearly the history and meaning of the title.

Motion on to the summary of Affiliate two or go back to the overview of the whole novel.

Want to improve your Sat score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? Nosotros've written a guide for each exam near the superlative v strategies y'all must be using to accept a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Get eBook: 5 Tips for 160+ Points

Raise Your ACT Score by 4 Points (Free Download)

Have friends who as well need help with exam prep? Share this article!

About the Writer

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate near improving pupil admission to higher educational activity.