Even though Fitzgerald’s novel is rich with vibrant settings and scandalous storylines, the character dynamics steal the show. From the moment our narrator, Nick Carraway, enters the Buchanans’ mansion, the hazy glow of their glamorous lifestyle quickly fades as characters reveal their true motivations. Both primary and secondary characters in The Great Gatsby have their own dark secrets — and they aren’t afraid to use and abuse someone else to get what they want. In this article, we’ll review the characters and thei relationships in The Great Gatsby.
What We Review
Primary Characters in The Great Gatsby:
Jay Gatsby
Jay Gatsby is the main character of The Great Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Gatsby’s many guests and neighbors speculate about who he really is. Some hypothesize that he was a German spy during the most recent war. Others wonder if he killed a man (Fitzgerald 44). Tom Buchanan and others suspect him as a bootlegger, which turns out to have a bit of truth (Fitzgerald 61). But in general, Nick concludes that “those who accepted Gatsby’s hospitality paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him” (Fitzgerald 61). It would seem that Gatsby preferred it this way.
It is not until a reporter comes to town to investigate Gatsby that the reader finally learns the truth about this elusive character. Even in his youth, Gatsby, known then as James Gatz, was ready to shed his old self and become something else entirely. Gatz despised his parents, “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”, as they did not seem to match the idea he had of himself as a “son of God”, charged with chasing every luxury in life (Fitzgerald 98).
His fatal flaw was his wild imagination that obsessed over “a universe of ineffable gaudiness” (Fitzgerald 99). When the day arrived for him to meet the wealthy and influential Dan Cody, at last, James Gatz, or his reverse persona, Jay Gatsby, was more than ready to seize this opportunity. When Dan Cody died, Jay expected to receive a large inheritance; however, one of Cody’s suitors stole that inheritance from him. At first, the story seems to end here, but Jordan Baker reveals the rest of the story —namely, Daisy’s part in it.
Jay enlists in the army and finds himself invited to a lavish mansion one evening, a mansion owned by Daisy’s parents. Daisy immediately enraptured Jay, but even more than Daisy herself, he is enthralled by the idea of her: a glamorous, ethereal, and exceptionally expensive object. This idea is especially upsetting when the reader learns that Gatsby “took her” one night when she was young, implying rape (Fitzgerald 149). When Daisy married Tom Buchanan instead of Gatsby, Gatsby works up reasoning in his mind to convince himself that Daisy never loved Tom, when in reality, she probably never loved Gatsby either. She simply wanted to lock away her idea of a happy future.
Gatsby continually lives in an imagined world where Daisy will one day belong to him, a world that he believes he earned by pursuing the American Dream. Amid his blind optimism, Gatsby is framed for Myrtle’s death. Her husband, George Wilson, murders him while the guilty party, the Buchanans, walk away without a blemish on their good name.
Nick Carraway
As the narrator of the story, Nick is not shy when sharing his opinions about every character he encounters. Because of this, many wonder if he is a reliable narrator or if his own infatuation and disgust influences his account of interactions with various characters. Because of something his father said to him at a young age, Nick is hesitant at first to pass judgment on anyone. But Nick, faced with countless signs of the hypocrisy of the people around him, becomes hardened by his disgust. Nick starts his time at East Egg filled with wonder and free of a critical eye. But characters such as Daisy and Gatsby specifically continually reveal their true selves to him to a point where he has to face the reality of who they are: shallow, insecure, and opportunistic people.
Daisy Buchanan
Fitzgerald characterizes Daisy initially as a flat character, lacking depth of emotion or cognitive awareness. However, he also hints at something beneath the surface, describing her as both “sad” and “lovely” as well as both “charming” and “helpless” (Fitzgerald 8-9, 11). As the novel progresses, the reader learns that Daisy does feel deep emotion, or, at least, she did at one time, but because those feelings were so traumatic for her, she has learned to suppress them as a survival tactic.
According to Jordan Baker, Daisy planned to leave Tom and run away with Gatsby on her wedding day. However, her friends and her family prevented her from doing so. As it turns out, Daisy may not have ever been in love with Gatsby at all. Rather, she may have felt something inside of her “crying for a decision” (Fitzgerald 151). If Gatsby wasn’t going to appear to shape her life for her, someone was going to. Who other than the rich, influential, and available Tom Buchanan. However, Tom cheats on Daisy almost immediately, and Daisy chooses to distract herself by attending lavish parties. It makes sense then that Gatsby hopes to draw Daisy to him by throwing one of his grandiose parties night after night.
An especially upsetting result of Daisy’s detachment from reality is her refusal to allow herself to become attached to her daughter, seemingly forgetting her very existence. One of Daisy’s most memorable statements is actually about her daughter when she says, “I hope she’ll be a fool–that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 17). As hard as she tries, Daisy is not a fool — she is well aware of Tom’s infidelity. Knowing she is powerless to do anything about it until she finds herself in the driver’s seat of Gatsby’s car.
According to Gatsby, Daisy swerved away from Myrtle at first, but then back in her direction, accelerating toward the woman in the road who she most certainly recognized as Tom’s mistress (Fitzgerald 144). Once again, Tom sweeps Daisy away from the situation by, free of any consequence for the damage left in her wake.
Tom Buchanan
Tom’s history of fame and fortune is revealed only a few pages into the novel, fashioning his powerful presence throughout the story from the start. Not only is Tom’s family disgustingly wealthy, but Tom also made a name for himself apart from his family background as a star football player at New Haven (Fitzgerald 6). Tom spends money frivolously but is never happy. Nick believes Tom will “drift on forever seeking”, wishing to relive his New Haven days, seeing life through the lens of an “irrecoverable football game” (Fitzgerald 6). Physically, Fitgerald describes Tom using harsh adjectives: his eyes are arrogant, his posture aggressive, and his body cruel (Fitzgerald 7). Tom is restless and unhappy, and his wife, Daisy, is the primary victim of the side effects of Tom’s emotions.
Tom not only has a visible affair with a woman in town, but he is abusive to both his wife and his mistress. Always needing to feel in control, Tom is often judgmental in conversation, especially toward Nick and Gatsby, two men that seem to know his wife apart from him. Every person in Tom’s life is an apparent threat, and his words and actions reveal his personal insecurities.
Finally, Tom refuses to take responsibility for his actions. When Tom’s life seemingly spirals out of control, with Gatsby threatening to take Daisy from him and George threatening to take Myrtle away, Tom seeks to seize control by any means possible. He succeeds by easily accepting the convenience of Myrtle’s murder, taking advantage of George’s grief and framing Gatsby for Myrtle’s murder, and casually whisking Daisy away without a hint of consequence.
Jordan Baker
Jordan Baker is a self-made woman, similar in description to the rise in independent young women during the 1920s. Even though Daisy is her closest friend, Jordan is the opposite of Daisy as she is a professional golfer with no need for a man to determine the course of her future. Both Jordan and Daisy command a sort of presence in a room, but Jordan is more refined, her posture like that of a young cadet (Fitzgerald 11). Jordan is a long-time friend of Daisy’s, but their relationship lacks depth.
Secondary Characters in The Great Gatsby:
Myrtle Wilson
Descriptions of Myrtle focus on her physical appearance, which is highly sexualized, as if we only see her through Tom’s eyes. Like her husband, Myrtle is simple-minded, believing in the lie that Tom will eventually leave Daisy to love and provide for Myrtle in ways that George never could. Myrtle is also impulsive, believing in an instant that Jordan Baker is Tom’s wife, simply because she is in the car with him. She shows her impulsivity again by dashing out into a busy street where she is struck and killed by Gatsby’s car.
George Wilson
Owner of a small, unprosperous auto shop and resident of the Valley of Ashes, George is a picture of the working class: downtrodden, tired, but not without hope of better days. He is simple-minded, believing that Tom Buchanan’s visits are due to a potential business deal, not because Tom is seeing his wife. George is easily manipulated into believing that Gatsby was having an affair with his wife after just a slight hint from Tom. He is also impulsive; not only does he plan to move West without warning before Myrtle’s murder, but he also decides to avenge Myrtle’s death by killing Gatsby before committing suicide.
Meyer Wolfsheim
Fitzgerald does not give us much information on Meyer Wolfsheim except by describing him stereotypically as a “flat-nosed Jew” with tiny eyes and tufts of hair coming out of his nose (Fitzgerald 69). Antisemitism peaked in the 1920s with the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and the popularity of heavily anti-Jew publications such as the Dearborn Independent. More on antisemitism during the 1920s can be found in this post on Albert’s Literature blog. Gatsby tells Nick that Wolfsheim is a gambler. Still, Gatsby’s business relationship with Wolfsheim is clearly secretive, hinting that Gatsby is involved in something more sinister and likely illegal. When Gatsby is murdered, Nick struggles to get a hold of Wolfsheim, and even when he does, Wolfsheim refuses to attend the funeral because he “cannot get mixed up in this thing right now” (Fitzgerald 166).
Klipspringer and Owl Eyes
Both regular guests at Gatsby’s mansion, Klipspringer and Owl Eyes have very different takes on Gatsby’s hospitality. While Klipspringer merely takes advantage of Gatsby, Owl Eyes has a fondness for Gatsby and is astonished by his library. Both attend his funeral, but only Owl Eyes is there on purpose. Klipspringer merely forgot a pair of shoes.
Catherine
The nature of Catherine’s relationship with her sister, Myrtle, is similar to the surface-level nature of Jordan and Daisy’s relationship. Even though Catherine knew about her sister’s affair, she merely took advantage of Tom’s wealth and the opportunity to travel to the city and indulge. After Myrtle’s murder, Catherine is aloof, and her grief is forced.
Henry Gatz
Very little is revealed about Gatsby’s father, and the reader doesn’t meet him until his son’s funeral at the end of the novel. Henry is described as solemn, old, helpless, and dismayed, much the opposite of his carefree, flamboyant son. Through dialogue with Nick, it’s clear that Henry thought highly of his son and was proud of everything he had accomplished. These limited details add to the funeral scene’s solemnity; Gatsby’s “friends” who surrounded him at every party he held were nowhere to be found. Only the father he had rejected felt the heavy grief of Gatsby’s death.
Relationships Between Characters in The Great Gatsby
The long-accepted truth is that the rich man has many friends, but if the rich man becomes poor, even his closest friends find reasons to abandon him (“Geneva College Blog”). There are many rich men and women in this novel, and every character is either using someone or being used. Many characters seem to have developed genuine relationships with one another. Still, these relationships easily crumble and fall apart when pressure is applied.
For example, take the moment that Nick Carraway enters the Buchanan mansion. Tom uses Nick to assert his own authority and manhood by diminishing Nick’s occupation and acquaintances. Daisy uses Nick to inflate her self-esteem by forcing him to tell her how much everyone misses her in Chicago. Nick innocently plays along with her behavior at the start of the novel. But as he spends more time with the Buchanans, he quickly realizes their superficiality and becomes disgusted by it. Jordan uses Daisy’s money and influence to promote her own comfort and social standing, and both Jordan and Gatsby use Nick to fabricate a reunion between Gatsby and Daisy.
To add to the list of insecure characters in the novel, Gatsby also expects Nick to affirm him, pressing him to tell him what his opinion is of him. Countless guests attend Gatsby’s parties, taking advantage of his hospitality but never taking the time to know him as a person. Wolfsheim and Gatsby use one another to land new clients in their shady business dealings, Tom uses Myrtle Wilson for his own pleasure, and Gatsby even used Dan Cody before the events of the novel even began to establish his new identity.
Nick is the only character who genuinely cares about anyone in the novel other than himself. He is therefore devastated by the events at the end of the novel when Gatsby, the rich man, becomes “poor” in his untimely death. Not only is his closest friend murdered, but no one seems to care, and to add insult to injury, the responsible party gets off without a scratch.
Increasing Student Understanding of Characters in The Great Gatsby
Several activities allow students to engage with these characters on a deeper level.
We highly recommend asking students to complete a Postmortem of the Protagonist analysis of any primary character in the novel! This activity prompts students to find evidence to support character motivations and fears and keep track of how these characters react to various people and events, citing evidence of their findings.
For your more creative students, we suggest a creative writing activity that prompts students to step into Daisy’s shoes by writing a diary from her perspective. The Daisy’s Diary activity encourages students to imagine what is going on in Daisy’s head and develop her as a character through creative journal entries supported through details in the text.
For assessment, students can hold rich conversations on these characters in the context of a Socratic Seminar, using the textual evidence gathered on their Postmortem charts to discuss character motivations and relationships. Additionally, students can pull in outside reputable resources to craft literary analysis essays, synthesizing their own character analysis with scholarly analysis.
Use Albert’s Chapter Quizzes to Check for Understanding
Each of our literature courses contains reading quizzes that you can use to track your students’ reading progress and comprehension before moving on to a new section of the text. You can find these reading quizzes in the Assessments tab of our subject guide.
Each chapter of The Great Gatsby has its own 10 question reading quiz, and each quiz is made up of the following:
| Question Type | Description |
| 5 Multiple Choice Questions | These questions assess students reading comprehension. This way, you can make sure they both read and understand the text! |
| 5 Fill in the Blank Questions | These questions ask students to fill in the blank with the appropriate character or plot point, ensuring that they remember what they have read. |
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, 2018.
“Geneva College Blog.” Proverbs 19:4 — Wealth Makes Many Friends… – Geneva College, a Christian College in Pennsylvania (PA), www.geneva.edu/blog/biblical-wisdom/proverbs-19-4
