Chapter 4- p.61-80

Summary: After a couple of outings with Gatsby, for the first time Gatsby sends for Nick. He picks him up in his beautiful car and drives him up to New York where the two have planned to have lunch. On the ride there Gatsby tells Nick about his life, leaving many things a mystery, which frustrates Nick. He asks Nick to do him a favor and go to tea with Jordan so she can explain to him what that favor is. Nick meets with Gatsby for lunch where they are joined by a old Jewish gamblers named Meyer Wolfsheim, who is extremely sentimental and later revealed as the man who fixed the World Series in 1919. At lunch Nick sees Tom Buchanan and tries to introduce Gatsby to him but Gatsby evidently has no interest in meeting Tom. At the tea with Jordan, Nick learns that Gatsby’s favor is to have Daisy over for tea so that he can see her. She tells Nick that Daisy met Gatsby when she was 18 and that he has loved her ever since, prompting his move to the West Egg and all the lavish parties. The chapter comes to a close with Nick’s agreement to invite Daisy to tea and his own subtle romance with Jordan progressing.

Meyer Wolfsheim

“He’s the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919”-Gatsby p. 73

Meyer Wolfsheim is a short Jewish man with an unfortunate nose and tiny eyes. His tiny eyes may be a symbol for a lack of something as eyes seem to have a huge amount of significance in this novel. He is rather intense and acts rather impersonally towards Nick. He is extremely sentimental and dramatic, it is obvious that he enjoys to be the center of a conversation. He takes pride in his money, as is demonstrated when he assumes that Nick is checking out his cufflinks, which were creepily made of human molars. There are a lot of weird things about Meyer, he is clearly involved in shady things.

Meyer is an obviously shady man who seems to be involved with a lot of illegal things. It is almost shocking that Gatsby would be associated with a man like Meyer. By being with Meyer, it is made clear that Gatsby was not quite as honest as Nick initially believed him to be about his past. Meyer is an interesting character who may turn up later in the novel and let the reader in on more of Gatsby’s past, after all there must be a reason he is such good friends with a man in a different age group who is involved with illegal business.

“Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,” I thought; “anything at all...”

This quote is interesting to me because it shows the stark contrast in Nick’s perception of the city compared to the Eggs. Nick is beginning to see the Egg’s as home but the city is foreign to him. As he becomes more familiar with the unique ways of the Egg’s, the ways of the rest of the world are becoming a mystery to him. The last time Nick talked about going into New York he witnessed as Tom Buchanan took on another life all together, this is probably what has shaped his bewilderment for the city.