| Chapter 3 Summary |
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The beginning of Nick's involvement with Gatsby starts in this chapter. Nick describes
Gatsby's parties in the beginning as a great festival. He says that extra gardeners and
waiters and maids arrive before the weekend starts and prepare to host the many expected
guests. Huge amounts of food are brought and processed so that the guests can be fed.
Then Nick tells of the few invited guests arriving with the barrage of other people who
just found themselves at Gatsby's party. He also elaborates on the way the lights shine day
and night, and the yellow car that buses people to and from the party. The people act as
if they were at an amusement park and lounge here and there without even meeting the
hosts sometimes. Before then, there are buffets and many drinks floating through
the party. The image of alcohol proliferating threw the crowd is given. Guests that have
met before do not even remember each other and the attitude of impersonality is
dominant. This comes to end on Monday and the excitement is over. Eight
servants, including an extra gardener, scrub and fix the estate to make is as perfect as
it was before the weekend. |
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Nicks is invited to Gatsby's party by Gatsby himself. A boy in an egg-blue suit comes to
Nick's door and gives him an elaborate and overly ornate invitation. The night of the
party, Nick walks across his lawn to Gatsby's plusher and softer lawn to join the reveling.
He finds that most of the people do not know Gatsby and even spread rumors about him. He
is told that Gatsby is a German spy and that he even killed a man before. He attaches
himself to Jordan Baker who seems comfortable and almost condescending toward the people around her.
Nick finally meets Gatsby and introduces himself. He finds Gatsby to be one of the strange
men who have something on their minds. Before Nick goes home Gatsby invites Nick to
hydroplane with him and to return to the party anytime Nick wanted
too. |
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Nick enters the library and finds the books are not cut. Symbolically, the uncut novels
represent the ignorance and knowledge held from people that help to bring the downfall
of Gatsby later. He also meets the drunkard who is amazed at the number of "real books"
that are in the library. When Nick decides to leave, Gatsby shows him out and Nick finds
that the party had only begun. A bunch of cars were trying to get in the parking area
while more were trying to pile out of the parking area. The cars had created a mess! The
cause of the dilemma was the drunkard who was watching a car stuck in a ditch.
Although he denied driving the car, everyone blamed him. This is another symbolic
event depicting the outcome of the novel. Then Nick finally goes home. Fitzgerald fast
forwards to a couple months later. The chapter ends with Nick's pondering Jordan Baker. He also declares his cardinal virtue as unscrupulous honesty. |
| Characters
| Description of
Characters: |
| Jordan Baker |
Jordan Baker, already introduced in a previous chapter, carries
herself above the crowd. She in both appearance and action shows her class rather than
claiming it. Looking at the party in an aloof and disdainful way, Jordan weaves through
the party as if she were already at home. Her role in the plot is unclear until Fitzgerald
introduces romance between Jordan and Nick. Their relationship is of little importance,
but it does parallel that of Gatsby and Daisy. Jordan also plays golf and has been accused
of cheating. Later in the novel he finds that Jordan is a chronic lair, but in his way
holds judgment. |
| The Two Yellow Dressed Girls |
Fitzgerald's intention is unclear here. He adds the two girls, but not as part of the crowd but as two girls that are addressed from the crowd. Although they are addressed, their identities remain hidden
behind the yellow dresses. Fitzgerald may have introduced them to show what kinds of personalities were present at parties such as Gatsby's party. |
| Lucille |
Lucille seems to be identified because she
offers insight to Gatsby's character. She does this by explaining an incident where her
dress was torn at Gatsby's party and Gatsby sent her a new dress that cost two hundred
and sixty-five dollars. Nick hypothesizes that Gatsby probably does not want any trouble
just like anyone else. Therefore her purpose is clear as to why she is introduced into the
chapter. |
| Mr. Mumbles |
The three men remain anonymous but not totally out of the scene at the party. They take part in the conversation and action, but remain anonymous. It seems they are present to take part in the gossip and probably be back ground characters. |
| The Drunkard in the Library |
Not receiving a name for now, the Drunkard is an unusual character. He is almost an oracle by pointing out the uncut books and later that night making a mess in the parking lot. All these events are explained in the symbols section. The drunkard is probably the only decent person at the party since he later shows his appreciation to Gatsby by attending the funeral. |
| Jay Gatsby |
Gatsby, "the man lending his name to the novel," is an unusual man. His parties are so large that they become impersonal; he plays hosts to many people he does not know. His interest in Nick is not as pure or altruistic as it seems. Gatsby loves Daisy and so he manipulates Nick to reach Daisy. Yet through their contact Nick becomes the only friend that Gatsby has. In fact at the end of the novel Gatsby reveals that he has no friends except for his father, Nick, and the Drunkard. Gatsby clears his reputation with Nick by explaining that he served in the Seventh
Infantry, where he first saw Nick. He also says that he went to Oxford but only for a few months and then came home. But the most significant feature of Gatsby's and Nick's relationship is the link that Nick has to Daisy which Gatsby wishes to make an advantage. |
| Quotations |
| page 43 |
"Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York - every Monday there same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves." |
| page 45 |
"I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby's house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited....I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin's egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer...." |
| page 53 |
"I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years." |
| page 63 |
"Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever shrewd men and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest." |
| page 64 |
"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have every known." |