Summer 1922

The summer of 1922 is the temporal crucible of The Great Gatsby, the season in which Nick Carraway arrives in the East, encounters Jay Gatsby, and witnesses the collision of dreams and reality that defines the novel. It is a period of oppressive heat, extravagant parties, and moral decay, stretching from the warm evenings of early summer to the broiling climax of late August, and its passage marks the arc from hope to catastrophe.

Arrival and First Impressions

Nick Carraway comes East in the spring of 1922, settling in West Egg, a less fashionable community on Long Island Sound. The summer begins with a sense of renewal: "life was beginning over again with the summer," he reflects, as he takes a weather-beaten bungalow for eighty dollars a month, squeezed between two enormous estates. One of these is Gatsby's mansion, a "colossal affair" imitating a Normandy town hall, with a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. The history of the summer, Nick notes, "really begins on the evening I drove over to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans" at their East Egg mansion, a red-and-white Georgian Colonial house overlooking the bay. That night, he first hears Gatsby's name and catches a glimpse of his neighbor stretching his arms toward a single green light at the end of a dock.

The Rhythm of Gatsby's Parties

Throughout the summer, Gatsby's house becomes a site of continuous revelry. Every Friday, five crates of oranges and lemons arrive from New York; every Monday, the pulpless halves leave in a pyramid. A machine in the kitchen can extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour. On weekends, Gatsby's Rolls-Royce becomes an omnibus, ferrying guests from the city, while his station wagon meets all trains. The parties feature a full orchestra, a bar with a brass rail, and buffet tables laden with spiced baked hams and salads of harlequin designs. Nick attends his first party on a Saturday night in early summer, where he meets Gatsby himself—a man of about thirty with a rare, reassuring smile—and learns from Jordan Baker that Gatsby had asked her to speak to him about a private matter. The summer is also marked by the constant presence of guests who accept Gatsby's hospitality without knowing him: their names fill a time-table headed "This schedule in effect July 5th, 1922." Among them are the Chester Beckers, the Leeches, Doctor Webster Civet, and a man named Klipspringer who becomes known as "the boarder."

The Reunion and Its Aftermath

The summer's pivotal event is Gatsby's reunion with Daisy Buchanan, arranged by Nick. On a rainy afternoon, Gatsby, pale and nervous in a white flannel suit, meets Daisy at Nick's house. The awkwardness dissolves, and Gatsby shows her his mansion, throwing piles of shirts before her—shirts of sheer linen, thick silk, and fine flannel in coral, apple-green, and lavender—until Daisy weeps. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such beautiful shirts before," she sobs. Afterward, Gatsby begins to see Daisy regularly, dismissing his servants to prevent gossip. The summer reaches its zenith on the hottest day of the year, when the group goes to the Plaza Hotel in New York. There, Gatsby confronts Tom Buchanan, insisting that Daisy never loved him. Daisy admits she loved both men, and Tom exposes Gatsby as a bootlegger and associate of Meyer Wolfsheim. The confrontation shatters Gatsby's dream.

The Climax and the End of Summer

That same afternoon, driving back from New York in Gatsby's yellow car, Daisy strikes and kills Myrtle Wilson. Gatsby takes the blame, waiting outside the Buchanans' house through the night to protect Daisy. The next morning, George Wilson, believing Gatsby was the driver, shoots Gatsby dead in his swimming pool and then kills himself. The summer ends with Gatsby's funeral, attended only by Nick, Gatsby's father Henry C. Gatz, the minister, a few servants, and the owl-eyed man from the library. Nick, disillusioned, decides to return to the Midwest. "After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me," he reflects, and he recalls the summer's parties as "gleaming, dazzling" memories that linger in his mind. The season that began with promise and the green light concludes with an empty house, an obscene word scrawled on the steps, and the sense that the party is over.