Short summary of The Great Gatsby Although The Great Gatsby is a very specific portrait of American society in the Roaring Twenties, its story has also been told hundreds of times and is perhaps to be as old as America itself: a man fights his way from rags to riches, only to discover that his wealth cannot afford him the privileges enjoyed by those born into the upper class. The central character is Jay Gatsby, a wealthy New Yorker with an indefinite occupation. Gatsby is best known for the lavish parties he throws every weekend at his ostentatious Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is suspected of being involved in illegal smuggling and other underground activities. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is Gatsby's neighbor in West Egg. Nick is a young man from a prominent Midwestern family. Educated at Yale, he came to New York to get into the bond business. In a sense, the novel is Nick's memoir, his unique take on the events of the summer of 1922; as such, his impressions and observations necessarily color the narrative as a whole. For the most part, he plays only a peripheral role in the events of the novel; he prefers to remain a passive observer. Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The Buchanans live in the upscale East Egg neighborhood on Long Island; Nick, like Gatsby, resides in nearby West Egg, a less fashionable neighborhood looked down upon by those who live in East Egg. West Egg is home to the nouveau riche who lack established social connections and tend to vulgarly display their wealth. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale and came from a privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal tyrant obsessed with preserving class boundaries. Daisy, on the other hand, is an almost ghostly young woman who affects an air of sophisticated boredom. At the Buchanans, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a beautiful young woman, although childish, with cold and cynical manners. The two would later become romantically involved. Jordan tells Nick that Tom had an affair with Myrtle Wilson, a woman who lives in Valley of Ashes, an industrial wasteland outside of New York City. After visiting Tom and Daisy, Nick returns home to West Egg; there he sees Gatsby watching a mysterious green light across the bay.