Character guide

Jay Gatsby

major

Also known as Gatsby, Mr. Gatsby, James Gatz, Jimmy

Gatsby presides over Long Island's most extravagant parties, yet he stands apart from the crowd, watching and waiting for a single guest who never comes. His fortune, his mansion, and his impeccable suits are all instruments of a single obsession: reclaiming Daisy Buchanan, the golden girl he loved five years ago. To Nick, he is both a romantic and a fraud, a man of 'extraordinary gift for hope' whose dreams are built on a past that may never have existed as he remembers it.

Nick Carraway

major

Also known as Nick, Mr. Carraway

Nick rents a small house beside Gatsby's mansion and is drawn into a summer of wealth, secrets, and careless people. He is Daisy's cousin and Tom's college acquaintance, which places him at the center of a marriage quietly coming apart. As Gatsby's trusted intermediary, Nick watches the romance unfold with growing unease, caught between his admiration for Gatsby's hope and his recognition of the corruption beneath it.

Daisy Buchanan

major

Also known as Daisy, Daisy Fay

Daisy lives across the bay in East Egg with her husband Tom, drifting through a life of parties and privilege that leaves her restless and unfulfilled. When Gatsby reappears, she is drawn to his adoration and the possibility of a different life, but she cannot commit to leaving the security Tom provides. Her charm and carelessness make her both irresistible and destructive, the center of a triangle that will force everyone around her to choose.

Tom Buchanan

major

Also known as Tom, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Thomas Buchanan

Tom rules East Egg society with a sense of entitlement so complete it barely registers as effort, keeping a mistress in the valley of ashes while expecting his wife's loyalty. When Gatsby enters the picture, Tom's possessiveness sharpens into something uglier, a need to expose and destroy what he cannot control. His investigation into Gatsby's fortune and his confrontation at the Plaza set the story's final act in motion.

Jordan Baker

supporting

Also known as Jordan, Miss Baker

Jordan is Daisy's oldest friend and a fixture at the Buchanans' dinner table, where she observes everything with a detached, slightly cynical eye. She is the one who first tells Nick about Gatsby and Daisy's history, drawing him deeper into the mystery. Her relationship with Nick unfolds in the margins of the larger drama, a tentative connection between two people who are both, in different ways, spectators of the lives around them.

Myrtle Wilson

supporting

Also known as Myrtle, Mrs. Wilson

Myrtle lives above her husband George's failing garage, surrounded by the grey ash of industrial Queens, and clings to Tom as her escape from that world. When she is with him, she buys magazines and dresses and speaks with a confidence that vanishes the moment she returns home. Her hunger for a life she can only glimpse through Tom makes her both sympathetic and reckless, and her presence in the novel exposes the human cost of the careless wealth that surrounds her.

George Wilson

supporting

Also known as George, George B. Wilson

Wilson runs the failing garage at the edge of the ash heaps, a man whose gray dust-stained world sits in stark contrast to the glitter of East Egg. He loves Myrtle with a desperate, clinging devotion that makes him both pitiable and easy to deceive, and his mounting suspicion gives the Buchanans' careless pleasure a menacing undertow. His garage becomes the crossroads where the novel's careless rich and its exhausted poor briefly, fatally, meet.

Meyer Wolfshiem

minor

Also known as Mr. Wolfshiem, Wolfshiem, Meyer

A shady businessman and associate of Gatsby, famously involved in fixing the 1919 World Series.

Ewing Klipspringer

minor

Also known as Mr. Klipspringer, Klipspringer

A frequent guest at Gatsby's mansion, known as 'the boarder' for his constant presence.

Catherine

minor

Myrtle Wilson's sister, who attends the party at Tom and Myrtle's apartment in New York.

Dan Cody

minor

Also known as Mr. Dan Cody, Cody

A wealthy copper mogul who mentored the young James Gatz and significantly influenced his life.

Henry Gatz

minor

Also known as Mr. Gatz, Gatz

Jay Gatsby's father, a poor farmer from Minnesota who arrives after his son's death.

Owl Eyes

minor

Also known as Owl-eyes

An eccentric, bespectacled party guest at Gatsby's who is amazed by the authenticity of Gatsby's library.

Lucille

minor

A guest at Gatsby's parties who provides Nick with gossip about Gatsby's background.

Mrs. McKee

minor

A neighbor of Myrtle Wilson who attends the party at Tom and Myrtle's apartment in New York.

Mr. McKee

minor

Also known as McKee

A photographer and neighbor of Myrtle Wilson, present at the party in their New York apartment.

Miss Baedeker

minor

A drunken guest at one of Gatsby's parties, mentioned briefly by Nick.

Michaelis

minor

Also known as Mavro Michaelis

A young Greek man who runs a coffee shop near George Wilson's garage and witnesses a key event.

Chester Becker

minor

Also known as Chester, the Chester Beckers

A minor socialite mentioned in connection with Gatsby's parties and the Buchanans' social circle.

Mr. Sloane

minor

Also known as Sloane

A wealthy, rude acquaintance of Tom Buchanan who visits Gatsby's mansion with his wife.

Walter Chase

minor

Also known as Walter

A minor figure from Gatsby's past, connected to his business dealings with Wolfshiem.

Doctor T.J. Eckleburg

minor

Also known as Doctor Eckleburg

The eyes of an old optometry billboard overlooking the valley of ashes, serving as a symbolic motif.