Chapter 1 - Summary

Question 1

What advice does Nick get from his father?

Answer 1

Don’t criticise others, as “not all the people in the world have had the advantages you’ve had”

Question 2

How does Nick introduce Gatsby?

Answer 2

“The man who gives his name to this book”

Question 3

What are the 2 ways in which Nick describes Gatsby?

Answer 3

“An unaffected scorn”, but with a “gorgeous personality”

Question 4

How does Nick describe Gatsby’s fate?

Answer 4

Victim destroyed by a “foul dust”

Question 5

Where have Nick’s family lived for 3 generations?

Answer 5

Minnesota

Question 6

Where did Nick graduate from? What year?

Answer 6

Yale

1915

Question 7

What did Nick do after Yale?

Answer 7

Join the army in WW1

Question 8

After the war, where did Nick move to? What time?

Answer 8

NY

Spring 1922

Question 9

Why did Nick move to NY?

Answer 9

“To learn the bond business”

Question 10

How does Nick see NY?

Answer 10

An exciting place, where he can reinvent himself

Question 11

Where does Nick find himself living?

Answer 11

West Egg

Question 12

How does Nick describe the West Egg?

Answer 12

“The less fashionable of the two”

Question 13

Who is Nick’s neighbour?

Answer 13

Gatsby

Question 14

How does Nick describe Gatsby’s mansion?

Answer 14

“A colossal affair by any standard”

Question 15

What 2 things stick out in Gatsby’s mansion?

Answer 15

“A marble swimming pool”

“Forty acres of lawn and garden”

Question 16

Where does Nick drive to? Who is he visiting?

Answer 16

East Egg

Daisy and Tom

Question 17

How are Daisy and Tom related to Nick?

Answer 17

Cousin

Cousin-in-law

Question 18

What is Tom wearing when he greets Nick? How is he standing?

Answer 18

“Riding clothes”

“Standing with his legs apart on the front porch”

Question 19

What does Nick recall to Tom at dinner?

Answer 19

How people at Yale “hated his guts”

Question 20

How does Tom come across at dinner?

Answer 20

Condescending

Question 21

Who is Jordan Baker?

Answer 21

Professional golfer

Question 22

How is Jordan described?

Answer 22

A beautiful women who is disinterested with everything around her

Question 23

In what way does Jordan describe the West Egg?

Answer 23

“Contemptously”

Question 24

What does Jordan mention to Nick?

Answer 24

She knows Gatsby

Question 25

What was the name of the book Tom urges everyone to read at dinner?

Answer 25

The Rising of the Coloured Empires

Question 26

What does The Rising of the Coloured Empires describe? Why does Tom urge the others to read it?

Answer 26

How the white race are at risk of “other races”

To protect “the dominant race”

Question 27

Why is dinner interrupted?

Answer 27

Tom receives a phone call from his mistress

Question 28

What does Jordan reveal to Nick?

Answer 28

“Tom’s got some other woman in NY”

Question 29

What is the atmosphere like when Tom and Daisy return to dinner?

Answer 29

Uncomfortable

Question 30

What does Tom suggest to Nick after dinner?

Answer 30

He should get romantically involved with Jordan

Question 31

What does Nick see Gatsby do when he returns from dinner?

Answer 31

Looking towards the bay of East Egg

Question 32

What does Nick almost do towards Gatsby? Why did he stop?

Answer 32

Calls out to greet him

Stopped because Gatsby “Stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way”

Question 33

What does Nick try to do to understand Gatsby? What does Nick see?

Answer 33

Looks out to sea

Sees a “single green light” in the distance