Abbi - Chapter One

The end of chapter one marks a closure to the setting of the book – Fitzgerald making use of his opening chapter to well-establish Nick as our narrator, Gatsby as our protagonist and Daisy as a character of intricate importance to the story in its entirety.

Nick's narrative during the first chapter is fluid - each line leads into the next and there seems no moments where there is a pause needing to be filled, or an explanation to a connection, with each piece of information leading into the next. This fluidity in the narration adds a sense of the era, of Nick’s education and view on the world, in its entirety – without focusing too greatly, yet still having an awareness, of its intricacy and structure.

The style of the chapter seems to setting the scene, for which the rest of the story will use as its grounding foundations. With Nick’s detailed description of the situation on both Egg’s, as well as their location with regards to social status, as well as wealth, it is as if Fitzgerald hoped to fit the reader into the story itself, and to educate them on life there, within the novel.

By not having any direct interaction with the novel's namesake, 'Gatsby', Fitzgerald is able to direct the reader’s interest - throwing in the odd bit of information, ‘You must know Gatsby’, to feed the interest and, at the close of the chapter, the introduction of the physical being ‘Gatsby’ – as a real character and the ability to, finally, put a name to a face.

With regards to the other characters and how they are introduced to us, as the reader, through Nick’s narration are very telling with regards to Nick’s view on the world around him. As we are introduced to a number of other characters by a biased narrator, we are almost told to dislike Tom Buchanan – seen through Nick’s eyes as ‘sturdy’ ‘with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner’. With Nick’s description of his eyes as ‘arrogant’ and the ‘enormous power’ of his ‘cruel body’ – there seems to be little to be found in him, through Nick’s eyes, to appeal – and therefore, the reader dislikes him. This is found to echo through when we discover that Tom has ‘some woman in New York’ – giving the impression that the skills Nick spoke of earlier in the chapter, ‘unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret grief’s of wild, unknown men’, are solidly grounded through his, correct, first impressions of Tom.

It is within this opening chapter that we are introduced to the fierce boundaries within the novel, and the idea that wealth cannot overcome good breeding – or a good marriage, however unhappy. It is through this chapter that Fitzgerald brings to the forefront of the consciousness of the reader, the characters which will determine a story that has already happened – the outcome already written, literally. And it is through this chapter that Fitzgerald sets out the domino effect of events that will lead us through Nick’s narration, to the end of the book.