The Great Gatsby Ch 1 Summary

The narrator of The Great Gatsby is a young man named Nick Carraway. He starts off the story by talking about himself, stating that he learned from his father to reserve judgment about other people, because if he holds them up to his own moral standards, he will misunderstand them. He sees himself as a highly moral and highly tolerant individual. He briefly mentions the hero of his story, Gatsby, saying that Gatsby represented everything he scorns, but that he exempts Gatsby completely from his usual judgments. Gatsby’s personality was nothing short of “gorgeous.”

Nick arrives in New York in 1922, where he moved to work in the bond business,like most of his generation and rented a house on a part of Long Island called West Egg. Unlike the old-fashioned, aristocratic East Egg, West Egg is home to the “new money,” those who, have recently built their fortunes and have neither social connections or the refinement to move among the East Egg set. West Egg is characterized by lavish displays of wealth and garish poor taste, the “old money”. Nick’s comparatively modest West Egg house is next door to Gatsby’s mansion, a sprawling Gothic monstrosity.
Nick is unlike his fellow West Egg neighbours; whereas they lack the social connections he has, Nick graduated from Yale and has many connections on East Egg. One night, he drives out to East Egg to have dinner with his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, someone. Tom, a burly man, greets Nick on the porch. Inside, Daisy lounges and chats on the couch with her friend Jordan Baker, a golfer, who seems to be perpetually bored when met by Nick.
Tom tries to get everyone interested in a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by a man named Goddard. The book espouses racist, white-supremacist attitudes that Tom seems to find convincing. Daisy teases Tom about the book but is interrupted when Tom leaves the room to take a phone call. Daisy follows him, and Jordan informs Nick that the call is from Tom’s mistress in New York.
After they have dinner, everyone goes they're seperate ways. Jordan wants to go to bed because she has a golf tournament the next day. As Nick leaves, Tom and Daisy tease that they would like for him to take pursue a relationship withh Jordan.
When Nick arrives home, he sees Gatsby for the first time, an enigmatic young man standing on his lawn with his arms reaching out toward the dark water. Nick looks out at the water, but all he can see is a distant green light that might mark the end of a dock.

The Great Gatsby Ch 2 Summary

There is a place that lies halfway between West Egg and New York City, a desolate plain, a gray valley where New York’s ashes are dumped. The men who live here are seen shoveling up the ashes. Overhead, two huge, blue, glasses-clad eyes, an old advertising gimmick by an eye doctor, glare from the old sign. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, watch over everything that happens in the area know as the valley of ashes.One day, as Nick and Tom are riding the train into the city.

Tom forces Nick to accompany him to 'meet his girl'. Tom leads Nick to George Wilson’s auto-shop, which is on the edge of the valley of ashes. Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, is Wilson’s wife. Wilson is a dull and drab, yet handsome man, skin colored gray by the ashes in the air. In contrast, Myrtle has a kind of desperate vitality; Nick observes her, and see her as a sensuous woman despite her stout figure. Tom bullies Wilson for awhile, then asks Myrtle to follow him to the train. Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to New York City, to the Morningside Heights apartment he keeps for his affair, not  before buying Myrtle a puppy as a gift.

This is where ecounters the strange couple of Catherine, Myrtle's sister and the Mckee couple.

Catherine engages Nick in conversation, telling him of a rumor she heard, that Jay Gatsby is related to Kaiser Wilhelm. They have a party oof sorts, exchanging drinks, with Nick commenting that it was the second time he ever got drunk. Nick tries to leave on several times due to the repulsive conversations taking place around him, but is prevented from doing such.

As the evening goes on and everyone becomes exceedingly more drunk, Myrtle brings up conversation about Daisy. Tom crisply tells her to not talk about his wife, Daisy being drunk and irrational, states she will 'talk about whatever she wants' which leads to her childishly chanting Daisy's name, this gets her a bloody broken nose courtesy of Tom. Nick makes his exit, drunk and catches the 4:00 A.M. train back to Long Island.

First tuorial

Act 4, Scene 4:
1. Margaret stays hidden in the shadows throughout most of the action.
2. Margaret plans to go to France.
3. For Richard to die.
4. She asks her to teach her how to curse.
5. She tells her not to sleep or eat and to remember her suffering.
6. The Duchess of York, his mother.
Act 4, Scene 5:
1. Stanley’s son George is being held hostage by Richard.
2. Stanley tells Richmond of the hostage situation.
3. She agrees to let her daughter marry Richmond.
4. Richmond is in Wales.
5. A renowned soldier.
6. Richmond and his followers plan to go to London.
Act 5, Scene 1:
1. Buckingham is executed in the tower.
2. Buckingham is executed on All Souls’ Day.
3. Buckingham calls Margaret a prophetess.
4. Buckingham wants to talk to Richard.
5. Buckingham talks to the sheriff.
6. He believes he is getting what he deserves for allying with Richard.
Act 5, Scene 2:
1. Act 5 takes place near Leicester.
2. Richmond seeks the throne to make peace.
3. Richmond says Richard’s supporter’s support him because Richard oppresses them as well.
4. Richmond is a day away from Richard.
5. He characterizes Richard’s reign as tyrannical.
6. Richmond states that true hope is swift, and turns Kings into Gods and men of lower class into Kings.
Act 5, Scene 3

1. Richard asks his tent to be set up in Bosworth Field.
2. Richard claims that his army is three times larger than Richmond’s.
3. Stanley camps out away from both Richard and Richmond.
4. Richard orders Stanley to be awakened at 9 o’clock.
5. The first ghost to appear was Prince Edward.
6. The sun should be shining according to Richard’s almanac.

Comparison of Richard in Act 1 and Act 4

When first introduced Richard III is portrayed as a sinister and immoral man who did what he needed to do to attain power. Although with all these faults you couldn't help but be in awe at the man's skills as a tactician and a manipulator. Some level of sympathy is felt towards Richard as it is seen that his bitterness and thirst for power spawned from the fact that he was an underdog for his entire life, born deformed and disliked by many he grew into a cunning manipulative and more than a bit sadistic man, but he was also amazingly intelligent. 

In Act 1 when get a good dose of Richard's skills as a manipulator as we read how he smoothly strings together a web of lies in front of his own brother Clarence,convincing him they are on the same side and seek a common goal, promising Clarence his freedom and effortlessly moving blame away from himself and onto the Queen. In scene 2 we read, dumbfounded as he effortlessly sways the heart of woman who not but a scant few moments earlier, Lady Anne, was cursing his very existence and attains her hand in marriage, he is quite the sweet talker, using heavy flattery to swiftly gain her favor. This is a wonderful example of how intricately Richard understand human psychology. 

In Act 4 though Richard is a completely different man. Gone is the sharp-minded, cunning tactician, in his place is a paranoid sycophant. Richard loses whatever little appeal he had towards the reader as he loses his suaveness, he destroys any little thing he sees as a threat now, not like before where he uses cold calculation to be rid of enemies, he now attacks them like a rabid dog.

In Act  scene 2 the now crowned King Richard III gloats of his success openly, the first of contrasts from Act 1 where Richard always gloated silently to himself and relishes his victories in private. His first deed as King to assure his secured throne was to send his right-hand man Buckingham to assassinate his two nephews, sons of the former king and rightful heirs to the throne. Buckingham is hesitant and asks for some time to think it over. Richard seeing this sees it as a weakness and threat to his power and plans to cut ties with Buckingham, which he does later on in Act 4. Richard also is noted pondering a marriage between him and his niece, the young daughter of Elizabeth, this implies that he plans to kill his current wife, Lady Anne.

In Act 4 scene 4 we see the Duchess of York, Richard's own mother cursing him condemning him to a bloody and painful death, this is a precursor to his downfall. As enemy forces invade Britain and Richard's supporters slowly abandon him we see the beginning of the fall of King Richard III.