Chapter Three Summary and Analysis

One of the reasons that Gatsby has become so famous around New York is
that he throws elaborate parties every weekend at his mansion, lavish spectacles
to which people long to be invited. One day, Gatsby’s chauffeur brings Nick an
invitation to one of these parties. At the appointed time, Nick makes the short
walk to Gatsby’s house and joins the festivities, feeling somewhat out of place
amid the throng of jubilant strangers. Guests mill around exchanging rumors
about their host—no one seems to know the truth about Gatsby’s wealth or
personal history. Nick runs into Jordan Baker, whose friend, Lucille, speculates
that Gatsby was a German spy during the war. Nick also hears that Gatsby is a
graduate of Oxford and that he once killed a man in cold blood.
Gatsby’s party is almost unbelievably luxurious: guests marvel over his Rolls-
Royce, his swimming pool, his beach, crates of fresh oranges and lemons, buffet
tents in the gardens overflowing with a feast, and a live orchestra playing under
the stars. Liquor flows freely, and the crowd grows rowdier and louder as more
and more guests get drunk. In this atmosphere of opulence and revelry, Nick and
Jordan, curious about their host, set out to find Gatsby. Instead, they run into a
middle-aged man with huge, owl-eyed spectacles (whom Nick dubs Owl Eyes)
who sits poring over the unread books in Gatsby’s library.

At midnight, Nick and Jordan go outside to watch the entertainment.

They sit at a table with a handsome young man who says that Nick looks
familiar to him; they realize that they served in the same division during the war.
The man introduces himself as none other than Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s speech is
elaborate and formal, and he has a habit of calling everyone “old sport.” As the
party progresses, Nick becomes increasingly fascinated with Gatsby. He notices
that Gatsby does not drink and that he keeps himself separate from the party,
standing alone on the marble steps, watching his guests in silence.
At two o’clock in the morning, as husbands and wives argue over whether to
leave, a butler tells Jordan that Gatsby would like to see her. Jordan emerges
from her meeting with Gatsby saying that she has just heard something
extraordinary. Nick says goodbye to Gatsby, who goes inside to take a phone
call from Philadelphia. Nick starts to walk home. On his way, he sees Owl Eyes
struggling to get his car out of a ditch. Owl Eyes and another man climb out of
the wrecked automobile, and Owl Eyes drunkenly declares that he washes his
hands of the whole business.

Nick then proceeds to describe his everyday life, to prove that he does
more with his time than simply attend parties. He works in New York City,
through which he also takes long walks, and he meets women. After a brief
relationship with a girl from Jersey City, Nick follows the advice
of Daisy and Tom and begins seeing Jordan Baker. Nick says that Jordan is
fundamentally a dishonest person; he even knows that she cheated in her first
golf tournament. Nick feels attracted to her despite her dishonesty, even though
he himself claims to be one of the few honest people he has ever known.
He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it,
that you may come across four or five times in life.

Analysis
At the beginning of this chapter, Gatsby’s party brings 1920s wealth and
glamour into full focus, showing the upper class at its most lavishly opulent. The
rich, both socialites from East Egg and their coarser counterparts from West
Egg, cavort without restraint. As his depiction of the differences between East
Egg and West Egg shows, Fitzgerald is fascinated with the social hierarchy and
mood of America in the 1920s, when a large group of industrialists, speculators,
and businessmen with brand-new fortunes joined the old, aristocratic families at
the top of the economic ladder. The “new rich” lack the refinement, manners,
and taste of the “old rich” but long to break into the polite society of the East
Eggers. In this scenario, Gatsby is again an enigma—though he lives in a
garishly ostentatious West Egg mansion, East Eggers freely attend his parties.
Despite the tensions between the two groups, the blend of East and West Egg
creates a distinctly American mood. While the Americans at the party possess a
rough vitality, the Englishmen there are set off dramatically, seeming desperate
and predatory, hoping to make connections that will make them rich.

Fitzgerald has delayed the introduction of the novel’s most important

figure—Gatsby himself—until the beginning of Chapter 3. The reader has seen
Gatsby from a distance, heard other characters talk about him, and listened to
Nick’s thoughts about him, but has not actually met him (nor has Nick). Chapter
3 is devoted to the introduction of Gatsby and the lavish, showy world he
inhabits. Fitzgerald gives Gatsby a suitably grand entrance as the aloof host of a
spectacularly decadent party. Despite this introduction, this chapter continues to
heighten the sense of mystery and enigma that surrounds Gatsby, as the low
profile he maintains seems curiously out of place with his lavish expenditures.
Just as he stood alone on his lawn in Chapter 1, he now stands outside the throng
of pleasure-seekers. In his first direct contact with Gatsby, Nick notices his
extraordinary smile—“one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal
reassurance in it.” Nick’s impression of Gatsby emphasizes his optimism and
vitality—something about him seems remarkably hopeful, and this belief in the
brilliance of the future impresses Nick, even before he knows what future
Gatsby envisions.

Many aspects of Gatsby’s world are intriguing because they are slightly
amiss—for instance, he seems to throw parties at which he knows none of his
guests. His accent seems affected, and his habit of calling people “old sport” is
hard to place. One of his guests, Owl Eyes, is surprised to find that his books are
real and not just empty covers designed to create the appearance of a great
library. The tone of Nick’s narration suggests that many of the inhabitants of
East Egg and West Egg use an outward show of opulence to cover up their inner
corruption and moral decay, but Gatsby seems to use his opulence to mask
something entirely different and perhaps more profound. From this chapter
forward, the mystery of Jay Gatsby becomes the motivating question of the
book, and the unraveling of Gatsby’s character becomes one of its central
mechanisms. One early clue to Gatsby’s character in this chapter is his
mysterious conversation with Jordan Baker. Though Nick does not know what
Gatsby says to her, the fact that Jordan now knows something “remarkable”
about Gatsby means that a part of the solution to the enigma of Gatsby is now
loose among Nick’s circle of acquaintances.

Chapter 3 also focuses on the gap between perception and reality. At the
party, as he looks through Gatsby’s books, Owl Eyes states that Gatsby has
captured the effect of theater, a kind of mingling of honesty and dishonesty that
characterizes Gatsby’s approach to this dimension of his life. The party itself is a
kind of elaborate theatrical presentation, and Owl Eyes suggests that Gatsby’s
whole life is merely a show, believing that even his books might not be real. The
novel’s title itself—The Great Gatsby—is suggestive of the sort of vaudeville
billing for a performer or magician like “The Great Houdini,” subtly
emphasizing the theatrical and perhaps illusory quality of Gatsby’s life.

Nick’s description of his life in New York likewise calls attention to the
difference between substance and appearance, as it emphasizes both the colorful
allure of the city and its dangerous lack of balance: he says that the city has an
“adventurous feel,” but he also calls it “racy,” a word with negative moral
connotations. Nick feels similarly conflicted about Jordan. He realizes that she is
dishonest, selfish, and cynical, but he is attracted to her vitality nevertheless.
Their budding relationship emphasizes the extent to which Nick becomes
acclimated to life in the East, abandoning his Midwestern values and concerns in
order to take advantage of the excitement of his new surroundings.