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The Great Gatsby

Decor and Ambience

“And I like large parties.

They’re so intimate.

At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” ~ Jay Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love, taking place over a few months during the summer of 1922.

Nick (the narrator of the story) writes, he had just arrived in New York, where he moved to work, and rented a house on a part of Long Island.

Planning Guide

Nick’s comparatively modest house is next door to Gatsby’s mansion, a sprawling Gothic monstrosity.

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.

Gatsby’s parties are almost unbelievably luxurious: guests marvel over his Rolls-Royce, his swimming pool, his beach, crates of fresh oranges and lemons (which were juiced to make cocktails), 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.

New to party planning? Or just looking for more tips? Check out the Planning Guide section for tons of useful tips and tricks.

More Celebrations

party scene from the 2013 movie

Gatsby is in love with Daisy Buchanan. During the war, before Daisy married Tom, she was a beautiful young girl in Louisville, Kentucky, and all the military officers in town were in love with her. Daisy fell in love with Lieutenant Jay Gatsby, who was stationed at the base near her home. Though she chose to marry Tom after Gatsby left for the war, Daisy drank herself into numbness the night before her wedding, after she received a letter from Gatsby.

Daisy has apparently remained faithful to her husband throughout their marriage, but Tom has not. Gatsby bought his mansion solely to be near Daisy. Nick remembers the night he saw Gatsby stretching his arms out to the water and realizes that the green light he saw was the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy.