Summary of the book
The Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway, who was once Gatsby's neighbor. As the story opens, Nick has just moved from the Midwest to West Egg, Long Island, seeking his fortune as a bond salesman(股票推销员). Shortly after his arrival, Nick travels across the Sound to the more fashionable East Egg to visit his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom, a very rich man whom Nick had known in college. There he meets professional golfer(高尔 夫球员) Jordan Baker. The Buchanans and Jordan Baker live luxurious （奢靡的） lives, contrasting sharply in sensibility and luxury with Nick's more modest and grounded lifestyle. When Nick returns home that evening, he notices his neighbor, Gatsby, mysteriously standing in the dark and stretching his arms toward the water, and a green light across the Sound.
Summary of the book
One day, Nick is invited to accompany Tom to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, a middle-class woman whose husband runs a modest garage and gas station in the valley of ashes. After the group meets and journeys into the city, Myrtle phones friends to come over and they all spend the afternoon drinking at Myrtle and Tom's apartment. The afternoon is filled with drunken behavior and ends with Myrtle and Tom fighting over Daisy, his wife. Drunkenness turns to rage and Tom breaks Myrtle's nose.
The Great Gatsby
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby (2013)-----stage photos
Introduction-----Writer
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist and short story writer, whose works are the paradigmatic(范例的，典范 的） writings of the Jazz Age. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise （人间天堂）, The Beautiful and Damned（美丽与诅咒）, The Great Gatsby（了不起的盖茨比） (his best known), and Tender Is the Night（夜色温柔）. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon（最后的一个巨头）, was published posthumously（身后，死后）. Fitzgerald also wrote numerous short stories, many of which treat themes of youth and promise, and age and despair. --------(WIKIPEDIA)
Introduction-----Writing background
The Jazz Age: The Jazz Age is the nickname in America of the decade of the
1920s, beginning from 1919 to the Crash at the end of 1929. It refers to the “Twenties” of this century. These ten years were, for Americans, a time of carefree(无忧无虑的) prosperity （繁荣）, isolated from the world’s problem, bewildering（令人 困惑的） great social change, and a feverish（狂热） pursuit（ 追求） of pleasure. These were the ten years when the First World War was just over, when new inventions and manufacturing （制造业）techniques greatly changed.