The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 1

Context and Characters; a background

•  The Great Gatsby was Published in 1926 and sent in about 1922, seven years before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash.
• The book is set on Long Island in New York State in two "giant eggs",  West-egg (where Nick and Gatsby live) and East-egg (where Daisy and Tom live). I think that the eggs are villages by the shores of an expance of water that isn't named.
• Just what makes Gatsby so Great? In fact, what is a Gatsby? The Title of the book gives nothing away, so how would readers know that he was, in fact, a man? Surely the question of WHAT Gatsby IS could be linked to the people who attend his party's curiosity about WHO he is! The entire novel is narated by a character who found him "facinating"
• The main character and narrator, Nick Carraway, comes from the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota, which is a boring mid-western state (and believe me it IS boring, i've been there...). Nick insists that he is not judgmental, fought in the Great War and uses large words. At Yale University, he was known as The Politician because he was nice enough to everyone and he observed people rather than anything else (Hmm... that reminds me of Gatsby, Luke). Also Nick's family owns a Hardware Shop.
• Daisy, Nick's second cousin, once removed, hails from Louisville, Kentucky.
• Jay Gatsby was born on the "shores of lake Michigan" so he could be from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan or Wisconsin. Gatsby stands for everything Nick hates about the East, despite being from the Midwest, just like Nick! He also has an "extraordinary gift for hope".
•  Tom Buchanon is from Windy Chicago. All of the main characters are outsiders. 

Chapter One; In which Nick moves to Long Island and sees Gatsby in the shadows

• Yep, Nick moves to Long Island, West-egg, in the house next door to Gatsby, who lives in a mansion while he lives in a "cardboard bungalow". In this first chapter, no description of the Gatsby is granted to us, as he was standing in the shadows and reaching out for a light at the end of a pier in East-egg.