“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. . . . And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

—Ecclesiastes 2:11, 4:4

Having recently returned from military duty overseas during the Great War, Nick Carraway is restless and tired of his provincial life in the Midwest. He moves East to get into the bond market and soon finds himself living among the wealthy on Long Island. Nick reacquaints himself with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, and through them he meets the “incurably dishonest” Miss Baker, for whom he begins to develop a romantic interest. Nick soon learns of Daisy’s deep unhappiness and Tom’s affair with Myrtle Wilson, a married woman. Before long, Nick is drawn inextricably into their lives.

Nick’s next-door neighbor is the extravagantly wealthy, but mysterious, Jay Gatsby. Even at his own lavish parties, Gatsby is the subject of rumors and speculation. Nick learns that Gatsby’s single dream, for which he has amassed all his wealth and possessions, is to win back the love of Daisy Buchanan, with whom he had a relationship some years earlier. Gatsby enlists Nick’s help in reuniting with Daisy, but Gatsby’s single-mindedness becomes his undoing as he seeks to relive the past.

The Great Gatsby is considered a masterpiece of American literature, filled with symbolism and beautiful, well-crafted passages. Through it we are given a glimpse into the characters’ moral emptiness, selfishness, and narcissism.