The Great Gatsby: Characters

Jay Gatsby – Nick’s wealthy neighbor in West Egg. Gatsby owns a gigantic mansion and has become well known for hosting large parties every Saturday night. Gatsby’s lust for wealth stems from his desire to win back the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan, whom he met and fell in love with while in military training in Louisville, Kentucky before WW I. Gatsby is a self-made man (his birth name was Jay Gatz) who achieved the American Dream of rising up from the lower classes to the top of society. But to Gatsby, the desire for love proves more powerful than the lust for money. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby’s downfall as a critique of the reckless indulgence of Roaring Twenties America.

Nick Carraway – A young man from Minnesota who has come to New York after graduating Yale and fighting in World War I, Nick is the neighbor of Jay Gatsby and the cousin of Daisy Buchanan. The narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick describes himself as “one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known.” Nick views himself as a man of “infinite hope” who can see the best side of everyone he encountered. Nick sees past the veneer of Gatsby’s wealth and is the only character in the novel who truly cares about Gatsby. In watching Gatsby’s story unfold, Nick becomes a critic of the Roaring Twenties excess and carelessness that carries on all around him.

Daisy Buchanan – The love of Jay Gatsby’s life, the cousin of Nick Carraway, and the wife of Tom Buchanan. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where she met and fell in love with Gatsby. She describes herself as “sophisticated” and says the best thing a girl can be is a “beautiful little fool,” which makes it unsurprising that she lacks conviction and sincerity, and values material things over all else. Yet Daisy isn’t just a shallow gold digger. She’s more tragic: a loving woman who has been corrupted by greed. She chooses the comfort and security of money over real love, but she does so knowingly. Daisy’s tragedy conveys the alarming extent to which the lust for money captivated Americans during the Roaring Twenties.

Tom Buchanan – A former football player and Yale graduate who marries Daisy Buchanan. The oldest son of an extremely wealthy and successful “old money” East Egg family, Tom has a veneer of gentlemanly manners that barely veils a self-centered, sexist, racist, violent ogre of a man beneath.

Jordan Baker – A friend of Daisy’s who becomes Nick’s girlfriend. A successful pro golfer, Jordan is beautiful and pleasant, but does not inspire Nick to feel much more than a “tender curiosity” for her. Perhaps this is because Baker is “incurably dishonest” and cheats at golf. Still, there is some suggestion in the novel that she loves Nick, and that he misjudges her.

Myrtle Wilson – The wife of George Wilson and the mistress of Tom Buchanan. Myrtle disdains her beaten down husband and desperately wants to improve her lot in life. She chooses Tom as the means to this end, but he sees her as little more than an object.

George Wilson – The husband of Myrtle Wilson and the owner of an auto garage in the Valley of Ashes. Wilson is a beaten-down man, who nevertheless loves and adores his wife. Her affair with Tom drives Wilson to the edge, and her death pushes him over.

Meyer Wolfsheim – Gatsby’s business partner and friend. A small, fifty-year-old Jewish man with hairy nostrils and beady eyes, Wolfsheim is a gambler who made his name in organized crime by fixing the 1919 World Series.

Owl Eyes – A drunken man Nick encounters looking through Gatsby’s vast library, amazed at the “realism” of all the unread novels.

Ewing Klipspringer – A man who is such a frequent guest at Gatsby’s mansion that he almost seems to live there. Yet he turns out to be nothing more than a leech, and after Gatsby’s death cares only about retrieving a pair of sneakers he left at Gatsby’s mansion.

Dan Cody – Jay Gatsby’s first mentor and best friend. Cody left Gatsby twenty-five thousand dollars when he died, but Gatsby never received it due to a legal complication.

Henry Gatz – Jay Gatsby’s father. A dignified but poor man, Henry Gatz loves his son deeply and believes he was destined for great things.

Pammy Buchanan – Daisy and Tom Buchanan’s young daughter.

Michaelis – A young Greek man who runs a coffee shop near Wilson’s garage.

Catherine – Myrtle Wilson’s sister.