A Book Report on The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Alma Fadhilla

16/399697/SA/18605

November 3, 2018.
I. Theme

From what I can conclude, the major themes of this book, The Great Gatsby by F.

Scott Fitzgerald are about love and social class. As for love, it is quiet visible that the

story of this book is mainly focused on the love story between the characters

especially between Gatsby and Daisy. All of Gatsby’s sacrifice can be seen as his

struggle to prove that he is worth enough for Daisy. And also the social class, it is

because Gatsby, who was originally come from a poor family, tried hard enough to

change his social class and make him to the upper one. The story is also highlighted

the marriage life between Daisy and Tom, who is full of unfaithfulness. It seems like

this marriage seems nothing for them since both of them is involved in an adultery.

II. Setting

The background place of this story is very obvious since the writer blatantly

mentioned it in the book. The story of The Great Gatsby takes place in Long Island

and New York. In Long Island, there are two significant areas for this story which

named West Egg and East Egg, the place where all of the characters live. Meanwhile

the events happened around 1922.

III. Main Characters

1. Jay Gatsby

Jay Gatsby is the main character of this story, therefore we got “The Great

Gatsby” as the title. The title explained a lot about him, he is indeed a very ‘great’

young man. He is wealthy and handsome. But no one knows about his real
 background or history, everyone has a different idea about him. Pretty much

explained that he is also mysterious.

2. Nick Carraway

Nick Carraway is a young man who originally came from Minnesota before he

moved to West Egg. Nick is like the character who is neutral to anyone but

secretly related and has the most important role of the story. He is a cousin to

Daisy, a school mate to Tom, and a neighbor to Gatsby.

3. Daisy Buchanan

Daisy is the love of Jay Gatsby but also the wife of Tom Buchanan. She dated Jay

Gatsby before she got married with Tom and still secretly has a feeling toward

Gatsby. Daisy is not really a good character of this book. From several events

happened to her, we can see that she is the character who always ‘plays safe’. She

does not really stand for the truth.

4. Tom Buchanan

Tom Buchanan is rich by blood. But if we talk about his life and personality, he is

pretty much having all the bad traits. He cheated on his wife, arrogant, racist and

sly. Even until the end of the story, there is no single good traits conceived by

Tom.
IV. Plot

The story is narrated by Nick Carraway. He began the story as he wrote that he

moved to a part called as West Egg in Long Island. It was in the summer of 1922.

One night, he visited his cousin who lives at East Egg. He described East Egg as the

place where all the aristocrats live and West Egg is for the ‘new rich’. He visited his

cousin Daisy and her husband Tom Buchanan. Tom is also his friend from Yale (both

graduated from Yale University). In their luxurious residence, Nick also met Jordan

Baker, a famous and pretty golfer. Four of them were having dinner when Tom

received a call out of nowhere. He left the room and Daisy followed him behind. At

that time, Jordan revealed to Nick that it was from Tom’s lover in New York. After

the dinner, Nick went back home to his house at the West Egg and saw Gatsby for the

first time.

The story moves to a scene when Nick and Tom were in a train to the city but Tom

asked Nick to get out midway. It turns out that both visited a garage owned by

George Wilson, whose wife was cheating with Tom. Then three of them, Nick, Tom,

and also Myrtle Wilson went to an apartment in New York and having a party with

three other people: Myrtle’s sister Catherine and the McKee couple. All of them were

drunk and wasted.

One day, Nick received a party invitation from Gatsby. He went to Gatsby’s house for

the party and stunned on how luxurious the party was. There were huge crowd and

seems like none of them know who the real Gatsby is. Some said that Gatsby was a

German spy during the war and also other said that he ever killed a man. Jordan

Baker said that Gatsby graduated from Oxford.

Gatsby to met Daisy, the love of his life. Both Gatsby and Daisy met at Nick’s house

and later Gatsby invited her along with Nick to take a look to his luxurious house.

Then both got connected again with each other, means that Daisy also got involved

into an affair with Gatsby. Until some day Tom noticed the affairs between his wife

and Gatsby. It was when Gatsby, Tom, Daisy, Baker, and Nick had a lunch together

in The Buchanan’s house. Then they went to the hotel in New York. In there, Tom,

Daisy, and Gatsby confronted each other about the affairs going on between Daisy

and Gatsby until Tom accused Gatsby of lying about his background and also his

business. At that time, Daisy’s heart shifted again towards Tom and Tom let her and

Gatsby got back to Long Island. Tom, Nick, and Baker took one car together to get

back to Long Island and saw that someone was dead because fatally hit by a car.

Later it revealed that it was Gatsby and Daisy who drove the car. And someone who

was hit is Myrtle Wilson. Tom then assumed that it was Gatsby who was driver.

After the accident, Nick visited Gatsby on his house and it turns out that Daisy was

the driver, Gatsby also told Nick that he lied about his background and revealed his

true identity, he said that he did that because he wanted to be acknowledged by

Daisy’s wealthy and respectable family. Gatsby said that he will run away with Daisy

from Long Island. Nick was realized that he was very late to his work and said good

bye to Gatsby. Then Gatsby went to a swim in his-never-used pool before it will be

drained tomorrow. But in the middle of swimming, George Wilson appeared and shot

him to death because he thought that Gatsby was Myrtle’s lover. After he shot

Gatsby, he also shot himself. In the end of the story, it was revealed that after
 Gatsby’s death, all of his acquaintances were missing even Daisy, who decided to

reconcile with Tom and move to another place far away

V. Turning Point

In my opinion, the turning point of this story happened when four of them went to the

hotel in New York. At that time, Gatsby thought that he is surely win Daisy’s heart

and forces her to say that she never loves Tom. But it makes Daisy felt that Gatsby

was asking too much and made her turned her back against Gatsby. After all, Daisy is

Gatsby’s goals and dream. Losing Daisy’s sides pretty will ruin Gatsby’s life. And

the next major turning point is when Daisy struck Myrtle to death. That is the starting

point that leads to the end of Gatsby’s life.

VI. Symbol

The big luxurious house of Gatsby and the Saturday’s party are the symbol of

Gatsby’s longing of being a man with higher social status. And also it symbolized

Gatsby’s love towards Daisy. He bought the house because it has the view of Daisy’s

residence and he held the party because he wanted Daisy’s attention and he also hope

that she will come to the party and notice how successful he becomes.

VII. Tone

Fitzgerald made Nick Carraway as the narrator of this story, so all of the events told

from Nick Carraway’s point of view. So the readers could see everything through

Nick’s interpretation. Fitzgerald wrote this book in a satiric and objective way.
VIII. Atmosphere

The atmosphere of the story is almost the same with the tone. Fitzgerald placed the

reader as Nick Carraway. The readers also sometimes can feel the gloomy and dark

feeling because although the novel is full of the glamour of the characters’ life, but

there are problems underlying there.