From The Great Gatsby
Jay Gatsby
The grand host and hopeful dreamer
Nick’s mysterious neighbor, who throws the most dazzling parties on Long Island and gazes at a green light across the bay.
Who is Jay Gatsby?
Jay Gatsby is Nick’s rich and mysterious neighbor, who throws huge parties with music and glowing lanterns every summer weekend. Underneath all the sparkle, he is polite, gentle and full of hope. Gatsby grew up as a farm boy, worked hard to make himself into a fine gentleman, and never stopped dreaming of Daisy, the girl he loved before he went away to war.
Jay Gatsby is a character in The Great Gatsby, the 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, retold for ages 6–9 by Sean Lee.
What is Jay Gatsby like?
- Hopeful
- Polite
- Dreamy
Jay Gatsby’s story
Jay Gatsby is the neighbor everyone in West Egg talks about. Guests whisper that he was a spy, or that he went to Oxford, or that he is secretly a prince. The truth is that he was born James Gatz to poor farming parents, and as a teenager he changed his name and went to sea with a rich man named Dan Cody. The book also hints that some of his money comes from shady business deals with a man named Meyer Wolfshiem.
Everything Gatsby does points toward Daisy. He met her as a young officer before the war, and he bought his mansion across the bay so he could see the light at the end of her dock. When he finally meets her again, he hopes she will say she never loved Tom. Daisy cannot quite do that, and Tom exposes Gatsby’s past.
On the drive home from New York, Daisy accidentally hits Myrtle Wilson with Gatsby’s car, and Gatsby decides to protect her. Myrtle’s husband, George, wrongly believes Gatsby is to blame, and in the sad ending of the novel he shoots Gatsby at his pool and then takes his own life. Almost no one comes to the funeral, yet Nick remembers Gatsby’s hope as something rare and fine.
“an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person”
A moment to remember
Gatsby gets so nervous before seeing Daisy at Nick’s tea party that he runs out the back door into the rain, then knocks at the front door soaking wet.
Family and friends
- Daisy Buchanan: the woman he has loved for years
- Nick Carraway: neighbor, friend and narrator
- Tom Buchanan: rival for Daisy
- Mr. Gatz: father
- George Wilson: the man who wrongly blames him
Talk about it
Gatsby held onto one dream for five whole years. What is something you hope for, and what could you do to help it come true?
Questions about Jay Gatsby
- Who kills Gatsby?
- George Wilson kills Gatsby. He wrongly believes that Gatsby was driving the car that killed his wife, Myrtle, and afterward he takes his own life.
- What does the green light mean in The Great Gatsby?
- The green light is at the end of Daisy’s dock across the bay, and Gatsby looks at it from his lawn. It stands for his hope of being with Daisy, and Nick says at the end that Gatsby believed in it.
- How old is Jay Gatsby?
- Gatsby is about thirty, close to Nick’s age. His real name is James Gatz, which he changed as a teenager.
Read the story in
The Great Gatsby
Ages 6–9, 72 pages
