As the story progresses you start learning about the characters and you get to get a glimpse of who they were and what they did in the past.
Nick and Gatsby heads to New York to have lunch and then Jay proceeds to tell Nick about his life previously. Nick finds his story somewhat farfetched. But, he claims that he is apart of a wealthy family, now deceased, and used to live in the midwest. He also begins to list accomplishments such as attending Oxford, collecting jewels in the capitals of Europe, and to have been awarded medals in World War I by other European countries. Gatsby notices that Nick finds his story skeptical and then shows him the war medal from Montenegro and a picture of winning cricket in Oxford. They finally arrive to lunch to meet a friend of Jay's named Mr. Wolfsheim. According to Nick, Mr. Wolfsheim is a shady person who seems to be associated with underground business. Mr. Wolfsheim also has the hunch that Gatsby's wealth isn't what its all made up to be and that he has ties to some sort of organized crime that he is apart of. After lunch, Nick sees Ms. Jordan Baker who finally spills the conversation her and Jay had at the party and then begins to go into a story that happend in the past. Jay began to tell her that he is in love with Daisy and that during the war she actually fell in love with Jay as well until he left for war. Daisy then obviously married Tom who has stayed faithful to him, he on the other hand has not. But, when Gatsby returned from war, he pretty much moved to West Egg to be close to Daisy again. For the meaning of Jordan telling Nick the story is that Gatsby wants him to arrange some type of meeting to get him and Daisy together. So, Nick arranges a tea party and invites Daisy over and "coincedentily" Gatsby shows up as well.
Nick comes back from a date with Jordan in the city to see Jay's house lit up but not occupied. Being curious, he walks to his house and out of the blue, Gatsby pops up and seems somewhat frantic. He begins to offer Nick to come to Coney Island to swim in his swimming pool and he realizes that he's offering him this only so Nick will agree to Gatsby's proposition of having a meeting with Daisy, which he finally agrees to. Gatsby then contiues to offer him a way to earn money by working at a part time business and that he'll hire someone to cut his grass. Nick is slightly offended that Gatsby wants to pay him for just an arrangement but he goes along with it anyway. When the day of the meeting arrives, Gatsby becomes very nervous and even though Daisy accepts his advances hes afraid that things won't be the same as they were before he went off to the war. When Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time, its very awkward but Nick leaves the two alone for awhile to come back and find them extremely happy with eachother. Gatsby then invites the two of them to his house showing Daisy his luxurious lifestyle and then proceeds to tell her about how he wants her to be apart of his future happiness.
Rumors begin to fly around the city about Gatsby and his life before he moved to West Egg. His real identity is revealed and he was actually born with the name Jay Gatz and lived on a farn in North Dakota. He dropped out after two weeks at St. Olafs in Minnesota, where he worked as a janitor to pay off his tuition. The next summer he worked on Lake Superior. The way he became a wealthy man is he met Dan Cody, a rich copper mogul, and rowed to his yacht to inform him about a storm. Dan took him in and changed his name to Jay Gatsby and he became his personal assistant. While sailing with Dan, Jay fell in love with the lifestyle of wealth and luxury. When he died, he left a $25,000 inheritance to Jay, but his mistress prevented Jay from recieving the money and from then on, Jay wanted to become successful. Gatsby once again holds another party and Tom and Daisy are invited. Tom has no interest in attending the party but goes anyway. He feels that he needs to keep an eye on Daisy at all times. Because of this Daisy has a bad time at the party and Gatsby notices. Gastby then goes out and finds Nick after Tom and Daisy leave and is upset that Daisty was upset because she didnt have a good time. He proceeds to tell Nick that all he wants is things to go back to normal but Nick tells him that he can't recreate the past and Gatsby gets mad at that and walks away.
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