The Great Gatsby characters connect the mansions of East and West Egg to the garage and city apartments beyond them: Jay Gatsby pursues Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan guards his marriage, and Nick Carraway tells their story. Their desires collide with the lives of people who have far less money and protection.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel unfolds mainly on Long Island and in New York City during the summer of 1922. These 12 profiles follow the central figures through the choices that expose them, from Gatsby’s lavish hospitality to the friends who disappear when he needs them. Major spoilers follow.
1. Nick Carraway
Nick Carraway moves east to learn the bond business and rents a house beside Gatsby’s mansion in West Egg. Daisy is his cousin; Tom is a former college acquaintance. Those connections make Nick the person who can bring Gatsby and Daisy together.
He claims to reserve judgment, but his loyalties break through. After Gatsby’s dream collapses, Nick calls the others a rotten crowd and tells Gatsby he is worth all of them together. This is no neutral witness. Nick’s account combines events he sees with stories he gathers afterward, held together by his attachment to a man whose conduct he often disapproves of.
2. Jay Gatsby
Jay Gatsby was born in North Dakota as James Gatz. Reinvention gives him a mansion across the bay from Daisy’s East Egg home, where he throws extravagant parties hoping she will wander in.
The money has criminal connections, including bootlegging. Yet Gatsby wants something money cannot simply buy: Daisy must say she never loved Tom. A reunion is not enough. He needs her marriage to become a mistake that can be erased, leaving his remembered romance untouched. His American Dream reaches its limit at another person’s refusal to become exactly who he needs her to be.
3. Daisy Buchanan
Daisy Buchanan is Tom’s wife, Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loved before going overseas during World War I. When they meet again, Gatsby confronts a life that continued without him. Daisy’s daughter, Pammy Buchanan, briefly appears, making that life impossible to dismiss.
Later, Daisy drives Gatsby’s car when it strikes and kills Myrtle Wilson. Gatsby is willing to take responsibility. Daisy goes home to Tom.
Nick sees the couple sitting over cold fried chicken in their kitchen, talking with an air of intimacy. Outside, Gatsby waits to protect her. Inside, the marriage he hoped to erase is closing around her again.
4. Tom Buchanan
Tom Buchanan’s inherited wealth places him securely in East Egg. Physically intimidating and openly racist, he assumes his advantages prove his superiority. His affair with Myrtle does nothing to weaken his insistence that Daisy belongs with him.
At the Plaza Hotel, Tom exposes Gatsby’s criminal dealings and uses them to challenge his claim on Daisy. He can betray his marriage while treating Gatsby’s intrusion as intolerable. After Myrtle’s death, that possessiveness becomes still more dangerous: Tom tells George Wilson who owns the car, sending his grief and suspicion toward Gatsby in West Egg.
5. Jordan Baker
Jordan Baker, a competitive golfer and Daisy’s friend, carries the story of Gatsby’s earlier romance to Nick and helps arrange their reunion at his house. She also becomes romantically involved with Nick, who finds her composure attractive until its carelessness touches him.
He remembers her leaving a borrowed car with its top down in the rain and then lying about it. Responsibility can apparently fall to someone else. When their relationship ends, however, Jordan challenges Nick’s own honesty. The Great Gatsby character who seems easiest for him to judge refuses to let him leave with his self-image undisturbed.
6. Myrtle Wilson
Myrtle Wilson lives above her husband George’s garage in the valley of ashes, the industrial wasteland between Long Island and New York City. Tom offers an apartment and a borrowed taste of fashionable life. There, Myrtle can act as though she has escaped the garage.
Her sister Catherine helps sustain the fantasy, repeating the false claim that Daisy’s Catholicism prevents Tom from divorcing her. Then Myrtle repeatedly says Daisy’s name, and Tom breaks her nose.
The apartment gathering dissolves into bloody towels and distressed voices. Tom’s violence punctures the freedom Myrtle thought the apartment gave her: she can occupy his rooms, but she cannot speak as his equal.
7. George Wilson
George Wilson owns the garage where Tom stops for gas. Discovering that Myrtle has a life beyond their marriage, he plans to take her west. After her death, his neighbor Michaelis stays with him and later gives testimony about what happened.
George turns fragments of information into a fatal certainty. He wrongly believes Gatsby was both Myrtle’s lover and the driver who killed her. His pursuit ends at Gatsby’s swimming pool, where he shoots Gatsby before killing himself nearby.
8. Owl Eyes
Owl Eyes is Nick’s nickname for a bespectacled guest he finds in Gatsby’s library. While other guests enjoy the party, this man examines its furnishings. He is astonished that the books are real: Gatsby has gone beyond the appearance of a library and supplied actual volumes. There is a limit to that authenticity, though. The pages remain uncut.
Owl Eyes later attends Gatsby’s funeral, arriving at the cemetery when almost none of the party guests return. His presence offers a small act of loyalty missing from Gatsby’s closer associations.
9. Klipspringer
Ewing Klipspringer stays at Gatsby’s mansion so often that he is called “the boarder.” During Daisy’s visit, Gatsby asks him to play the piano; he supplies music for a romance that makes the whole house feel necessary.
His later phone call strips away that importance. Klipspringer wants his tennis shoes returned. He has enjoyed Gatsby’s hospitality without accepting any obligation to the host, and the object he misses is something he left behind.
10. Meyer Wolfsheim
Meyer Wolfsheim is Gatsby’s business associate, identified by Gatsby as the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. He connects the mansion’s money to organized corruption. His cuff buttons, made from human molars, give that connection a grotesquely intimate detail.
Fitzgerald’s portrayal relies on antisemitic stereotypes, which shape the description as well as the character’s criminal associations. Wolfsheim’s own account of friendship proves hollow when Gatsby dies: he refuses to attend the funeral. Business intimacy has not created a bond he will honor in public.
11. Dan Cody
Dan Cody is the wealthy yachtsman Gatsby meets on Lake Superior while still young. Cody buys him a blue coat and white duck trousers, dressing him for the wealthy life he is about to enter. Gatsby spends five years aboard the yacht in several practical roles, including looking after Cody when he drinks.
Legal maneuvering involving Cody’s mistress, Ella Kaye, keeps Gatsby from receiving his inheritance. He leaves with firsthand knowledge of rich people’s habits instead. His apprenticeship begins before Daisy becomes the center of his ambition; she gives an existing hunger a particular destination.
12. Henry Gatz
Henry C. Gatz comes from Minnesota after learning that his son has died. Where Gatsby’s guests found a mysterious host, Henry sees a successful son and reasons for pride.
He brings out a copy of Hopalong Cassidy containing the self-improvement schedule Gatsby wrote as a boy. Before the mansion and the invented name, there was already a timetable: allotted periods for exercise and study, including time set aside to learn electricity.
Key Takeaways
- Gatsby’s pursuit asks Daisy to surrender the life she actually has for the one he remembers.
- Nick’s affection gives his account emotional force without making him an impartial judge.
- The affair joining Tom and Myrtle offers access to wealth without equal protection.
- Small possessions expose relationships: books can furnish an identity; tennis shoes can reveal indifference.
- Gatsby’s childhood discipline complicates the rumors surrounding his adult fortune.
Frequently Asked Questions
These questions clarify the family connections and ambiguities that the characters leave behind.
Is The Great Gatsby LGBTQ?
The novel does not explicitly identify any character as LGBTQ, though it supports queer readings. Nick’s fascination with Gatsby and his ambiguous encounter with Mr. McKee, a photographer he meets at Tom and Myrtle’s apartment gathering, have prompted interpretations of queer desire. After leaving the gathering, Nick describes standing beside McKee’s bed while McKee sits in his underwear holding a portfolio; the narrative does not explain the transition. Those readings explore implications in the writing, not a sexuality the novel directly confirms.
Who Was the Girl Gatsby Loved?
Gatsby loved Daisy Buchanan, whom he met in Louisville before going overseas. The harder question is how much of his love belongs to the woman before him and how much belongs to his memory of her.
Why Does Nick Narrate the Novel Instead of Gatsby?
Nick’s narration allows Gatsby to emerge through rumors and appearances before his history becomes clear. Gatsby can explain his plans to Nick without giving readers unrestricted access to his thoughts. That distance preserves the gap between his self-presentation and what others observe.
Which Characters Attend Gatsby’s Funeral?
Nick, Henry Gatz, Owl Eyes, a Lutheran minister, four or five servants, and the West Egg postman attend Gatsby’s funeral. Daisy, Tom, and Wolfsheim stay away.
Is Gatsby Related to Nick or Daisy?
Gatsby is not related to Nick or Daisy. Nick and Daisy are cousins, while Gatsby enters their circle through friendship and romance. The connections among the characters from The Great Gatsby are social as well as familial, which helps explain Gatsby’s uncertain place among them.
Knowing the People Behind Gatsby’s Dream
The characters’ roles emerge not just from what they want, but from what they owe one another. Gatsby’s devotion wins Nick’s sympathy without making his demands on Daisy reasonable; Tom and Daisy’s security lets them leave others to bear the consequences. The novel keeps sympathy and responsibility separate: understanding a character’s longing does not mean excusing what that longing costs someone else.