What Is the Common Theme to All the Stories About the People Who Meet at Gatsbys Parties?

In Chapter three of The Great Gatsby, we finally—finally!—we get to encounter one of Gatsby's totally off the hook parties! And, it more than than lives up to the hype as far as Nick is concerned. Even more excitingly, nosotros finally get to meet the man, the myth, the legend himself—Gatsby, in the flesh! Then why then does this reveal, which the novel has been building toward for ii.v chapters, seem so anticlimactic?

Read on for our Cracking Gatsby Chapter 3 summary, covering the highs and lows of the Gatsby Saturday night experience.

Quick Note on Our Citations

Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, and so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book.

To find a quotation nosotros cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; fifty-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of affiliate), or employ the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text.

The Great Gatsby: Chapter 3 Summary

Nick describes watching countless parties going on in Gatsby's firm every weekend. Guests party day and nighttime so on Mondays servants clean up the mess.

Everything is about backlog and a sense of overkill. Each weekend, guests are ferried back and forth to Manhattan past Rolls-Royce, crates of oranges and lemons are juiced, an army of caterers sets up tents and lighting, food is piled high, the bar is overwhelmingly stocked, and at that place is a huge band playing. It's an even bigger deal than information technology sounds considering all this is happening during the Prohibition, when alcohol was supposedly unavailable.

The first dark Nick goes to Gatsby's for a party, he'southward i of a very few actually invited guests. Anybody else just crashes. At the party, Nick is ill at ease. He knows no one. There's a surprising number of English people at the party, who seem drastic to get their easily on American coin.

No one knows where Gatsby himself is. Nick hangs out near the bar until he sees Jordan Bakery. Nick and Jordan chat with other party people. A immature adult female tells them that at another one of these parties, when she ripped her wearing apparel by accident, Gatsby sent her a very expensive replacement. They gossip about what this odd beliefs means. I rumor has information technology that Gatsby killed someone, some other that he was a German spy.

Food is served, which Nick and Jordan eat at a table full of people from East Egg, who look at this insane political party with condescension.

They make up one's mind to find Gatsby since Nick has never actually met him. In his mansion, they cease upwards in the library, which has ornately carved bookshelves and reams of books. A man with owl-eyed spectacles enthuses nearly the fact that all these books are really real—and most the fact that Gatsby hasn't cut their pages (pregnant he'southward never read any of them).

Back out in the garden, guests are at present dancing, and several famous opera singers perform. Some partygoers also perform relatively risqué acts.

Nick and Hashemite kingdom of jordan sit downward at a table with a man who recognizes Nick from the army. After talking about the places in French republic where they were stationed during the war, the man reveals that he is Gatsby. Gatsby flashes the world'south greatest and most seductive (not sexually, just extremely appealingly) smile at Nick and leaves to take a telephone call from Chicago.

Nick demands more information about Gatsby from Jordan, who said that Gatsby calls himself an Oxford man (meaning, he went to the University of Oxford). Jordan says that she doesn't believe this, and Nick lumps the info in with all the other rumors he's heard (that Gatsby had killed a man, that he was Kaiser Wilhelm's nephew, that he was a German spy, etc.).

The orchestra strikes up the latest number ane hit. Nick notices Gatsby looking over his guests with approval. Gatsby neither drinks, nor dances, nor flirts with anyone at the party.

When Jordan is suddenly and mysteriously asked to speak to Gatsby alone, Nick watches a drunk guest weep and then pass out. He notices fights breaking out between other couples. Even the group of people from East Egg are no longer on their best behavior.

Despite the fact that the party is clearly over, no ane wants to get out. Equally Nick is getting his hat to exit, Gatsby and Jordan come out of the library. Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby has just told her something astonishing—but she can't reveal what. She gives Nick her number and leaves.

Nick finds Gatsby, apologizes for not seeking him out earlier. Gatsby invites him to become out on his hydroplane the next mean solar day, and Nick leaves equally Gatsby is summoned to a call from Philadelphia.

He waves goodbye from the steps of his mansion, looking lonely.

Exterior, the homo with the owl-eyed glasses from the library has crashed his auto. An even drunker man emerges from the driver'due south seat of the wreck and is comically but also horrifyingly confused nearly what has happened.

Suddenly, the narrative is interrupted past present-day Nick. He thinks that what he's been writing is probably giving u.s.a. the wrong idea. He wasn't fixated on Gatsby during that summer—this fixation has only happened since then. That summer, he spent most of his time working at his second or tertiary-tier bond trading company, Probity Trust, and had a human relationship with a coworker. He started to actually like the crowded and anonymous feel of Manhattan, just also felt lonely.

In the middle of the summer, Nick reconnects with Jordan Baker and they start dating. He nigh falls in beloved with her and discovers that under her veneer of boredom, Jordan is an incorrigible liar. She gets away with information technology because in the rigid upper-class lawmaking of behavior, calling a woman out as a liar would be improper. Nick suddenly remembers the story he had read near her golfing career: Hashemite kingdom of jordan was accused of cheating past moving her ball to a meliorate lie, only the witnesses later recanted and zero was proven.

When Nick complains that Hashemite kingdom of jordan is a terrible driver, she answers that she relies on the other people on the route to exist careful instead of her. Nick wants to take their human relationship farther, but reigns himself in considering he hasn't fully broken off the non-engagement back home that Tom and Daisy had asked him nigh earlier.

He claims that he is one of the few honest people that he's ever met.

So, lots of car accidents, and talk nearly motorcar accidents, all in the vicinity of booze? Can you say foreshadowing?

Cardinal Chapter iii Quotes

I believe that on the first nighttime I went to Gatsby's business firm I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited—they went in that location. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Isle and somehow they concluded up at Gatsby'southward door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby and afterward that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its ain ticket of admission. (3.seven)

Gatsby'due south parties are the epitome of anonymous, meaningless backlog—and so much and so that people treat his house equally a kind of public, or at to the lowest degree commercial, space rather than a private home. This is continued to the vulgarity of new money—you can't imagine Tom and Daisy throwing a party like this. Or Nick for that thing. The random and meaningless indulgence of his parties further highlights Gatsby's isolation from true friends. As Jordan says later on, big parties are bang-up because they provide privacy/intimacy, and so Gatsby stands lone in a sea of strangers having their ain intimate moments.

A stout, heart-aged homo with enormous owl-eyed spectacles was sitting somewhat drunkard on the border of a bang-up table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. …He waved his hand toward the volume-shelves.

"Near that. Equally a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They're existent…."Absolutely real—have pages and everything. I idea they'd exist a dainty durable cardboard. Affair of fact, they're absolutely real. Pages and—Here! Lemme show you."

Taking our skepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the "Stoddard Lectures."

"Meet!" he cried triumphantly. "Information technology's a bona fide piece of printed matter. Information technology fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop too—didn't cutting the pages. But what practice yous want? What do you wait?" (3.41-50)

Belasco was a renowned theatrical producer, so comparing Gatsby to him here is a way of describing the library every bit a phase set for a play—in other words, equally a magnificent and convincing simulated. This sea of unread books is either yet more tremendous waste of resource, or a kind of miniature example of the fact that a person's core identity remains the same no thing how many layers of disguise are placed on tiptop.

Gatsby has the money to buy these books, but he lacks the interest, depth, time, or ambition to read and understand them, which is similar to how he regards his quest to get Daisy.

He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was i of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in information technology, that yous may meet four or five times in life. Information technology faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on y'all with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as yous wanted to be understood, believed in you every bit you lot would like to believe in yourself and bodacious you that information technology had precisely the impression of yous that, at your best, you lot hoped to convey. Precisely at that point information technology vanished—and I was looking at an elegant immature rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech merely missed beingness cool. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care. (three.76)

Lots of Gatsby's entreatment lies in his ability to instantly connect with the person he is speaking to, to make that person experience important and valued. This is probably what makes him a keen front man for Wolfsheim's bootlegging enterprise, and connects him with Daisy, who also has a preternaturally highly-seasoned quality—her voice.

Dishonesty in a adult female is a affair you never blame deeply—I was casually sorry, and then I forgot. (three.161)

The offhanded misogyny of this remark that Nick makes nigh Hashemite kingdom of jordan is telling in a novel where women are generally treated every bit objects at worst or lesser beings at best. Even our narrator, ostensibly a tolerant and nonjudgmental observer, here reveals a core of patriarchal assumptions that run deep.

Every i suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I take ever known. (3.171)

There are layers of significant and sense of humour here.

First, the sense of humor:

• While in Christian tradition there is the concept of central virtues, honesty is non one of them. So here, since the phrase "cardinal sin" is the more than familiar concept, in that location is a minor joke that Nick's honesty is really a negative quality, a burden.

• Nick is telling us near his scrupulous honesty a second later on he'southward revealed that he's been writing love messages to a girl back dwelling every week despite wanting to end their relationship, and despite dating a girl at his office, and then dating Jordan in the concurrently. So honesty to Nick doesn't really hateful what it might to most people.

2nd, the significant:

What does it mean to accept our narrator tell us in ane breath that he is honest to a fault, and that he doesn't think that almost other people are honest? This sounds like a humblebrag kind of observation. But also, nosotros need to question Nick'southward ability to understand/empathize with other people if he thinks he is on such a removed plane of existence from them. And of course since he just showed u.s. that he is not actually all that honest only a paragraph ago, nosotros demand to realize that his narration is probably not completely factual/accurate/true. Plus, this observation comes at the end of the 3rd affiliate, after we've met all the major players finally—then it'due south like the board has been set, and now nosotros finallt take enough information to distrust our narrator.

I guess nosotros're going with "Nick Carraway: World's Most Honest Liar" on this one?

Affiliate 3 Analysis

This is a good time to stride back from the plot and the text to see how this chapter connects to the book's bigger picture.

Themes and Symbols

Coin and Materialism. Goose egg says Roaring 20s excess like the insane party Gatsby throws. In Nick's clarification, it'southward an explosion of decorations, food, booze, music, and anonymous guests who don't even know the host. This, combined with the over-the-top level of entertainment he provides is jarring even for the wealthy West Egg crowd, and speaks to the materialism and conspicuous display of consumption the novel deplores. Information technology's interesting that Gatsby orchestrates but doesn't participate in his extravaganzas—even the guests become display pieces of his wealth as he stands above them and watches.

Lodge and Class. At the same time, we go a sense of the West Egg/East Egg divide every bit Jordan Bakery's East Egg friends stick together and exercise non mix with the residual of the guests, regarding them as vulgar and below them.

Mutability of Identity. The beautifully decorated library filled with books that take never been read speaks to Gatsby'due south theatrical approach to crafting his new identity. He can create the trapping and advent of an Oxford human being, but doesn't take the background or inner resource to actually be one. At the aforementioned time, the mystery around Gatsby deepens. Nosotros get new theories about his background—he killed a man, he was a German spy during the war, he went to Oxford. And we also meet him doing all sorts of inexplicable things—taking concern phone calls from Chicago and Philadelphia, telling Jordan something surreptitious and fascinating, not actually partying at his own political party. At the same time, we get the first glimpse into the "neat" Gatsby—that dazzling grinning that captivates Nick with its empathy and connection.

Motifs: Sports. Nosotros get our second mention of organized sports in Nick's brief description of a golf cheating scandal that Hashemite kingdom of jordan was involved with. He chalks it upwards to her full general trend to prevarication. Golf game is the perfect sport for Jordan to play. Information technology is a game that is highly ordered by social rules and customs, so information technology fits neatly into her lying MO—she relies on the idea that accusing a woman of adulterous is seen equally ungentlemanly.

Hashemite kingdom of jordan Baker: using the staid rules of the behavior of the upper crust to leverage her golf game, like a boss.

Crucial Character Beats

• Nick and Hashemite kingdom of jordan meet the human with the owl-eyed spectacles (a mysterious and nevertheless somehow important small figure—later, he will be the only person who will bear witness up to Gatsby's funeral) who shows them Gatsby's library of unread books. Like the balance of Gatsby's life, this library is just window-dressing.

• We finally see Gatsby! The title character of the book doesn't appear until Affiliate 3—and past this betoken, he's no longer but a human being. He's a myth and a legend. His bodily appearance doesn't dispel the mystery, simply deepens it: why is he getting business phone calls on a weekend? How does a human as young as he is take this kind of money? Why doesn't he participate in his own party? Why doesn't Nick describe what he looks like (the mode he does every other person in the book)?

• The owl-spectacles man and his even drunker companion crash a auto that they have no idea how to drive. This alarming combination of driving and alcohol is hither played for laughs, but is also an important bit of foreshadowing. The foreshadowing is laid on even thicker when Hashemite kingdom of jordan says that as a careless commuter, she relies on other people to watch out for her, and Nick points out the danger of 2 careless people coming together on the road.

• Present-day Nick interrupts his story to let us know that the things that he is describing as significant at present didn't announced so at the time. This both shows how much his fascination with Gatsby has grown over time, and makes the novel'south heavy employ of foreshadowing all the more significant.

• Nick and Jordan start dating, and he realizes that she is a compulsive liar.

What'south Next?

Learn more near what makes Jordan tick in training for the adjacent chapter, when she will take over narrator duties for a while.

Think about how Gatsby'due south parties take been portrayed in the movie adaptations of this novel, since these are the scenes that take go iconic in the manner Gatsby has seeped into the larger civilization.

Move on to the summary of Chapter iv, or revisit the summary of Affiliate ii.

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About the Author

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in loftier school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving educatee access to higher education.

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