Our definitive The Great Gatsby characters analysis reveals more than just a cast of Jazz Age socialites; it uncovers a meticulously crafted ecosystem of dreamers, enforcers, and victims who embody F. Scott Fitzgerald’s profound critique of the American Dream.
Each figure, from the enigmatic Gatsby to the most minor party guest, serves as a crucial lens on the era’s dazzling illusions and its dark, underlying realities.
This guide moves beyond standard summaries to offer a comprehensive analysis of every significant character. We’ll explore the psychological underpinnings of their motivations, connect their 1920s anxieties to contemporary themes, and provide a link to a definitive, in-depth analysis for each figure.
Our goal is to provide the most insightful and thorough resource available for students and literary enthusiasts, grounded in meticulous textual evidence.
Note: This guide analyzes characters based on events from the entire novel, including its tragic conclusion. Reader discretion is advised if you have not completed the book.
The Central Figures: The Heart of the Narrative
At the core of The Great Gatsby are the individuals whose desires, flaws, and interactions drive the novel’s tragic plot. Their complicated relationships and competing dreams form the central conflict, offering a powerful commentary on love, wealth, and moral compromise in Jazz Age America.
Jay Gatsby: The Tragic Dreamer
Jay Gatsby is the enigmatic heart of the novel, a self-made millionaire known for throwing the most spectacular parties in West Egg. But the lavish facade is a meticulously crafted stage, and every firework that lights up the sky over his mansion is a beacon for a single audience member: his lost love, Daisy Buchanan.
Gatsby’s character is a deep exploration of the American Dream’s dazzling promise and its potential for corruption. His “extraordinary gift for hope” is both his most defining, admirable quality and the engine of his ultimate tragedy, as he stakes his entire identity on the impossible goal of repeating the past.
From a modern perspective, Gatsby can be seen as the original “influencer,” carefully curating an image of success and effortless luxury to attract a specific person’s attention. His parties function like viral content, designed to create a mythic persona that might one day reach Daisy’s ears.
This relentless self-branding, as psychological critiques suggest, can be viewed as a form of “compensatory grandiosity”, an elaborate defense mechanism built to mask the deep-seated shame of his impoverished origins as James Gatz. He isn’t just throwing parties; he’s building a brand, hoping its value will be enough to purchase a dream.
For a definitive exploration of his constructed persona, his motivations, and the tragic flaws that defined his quest, see our complete Jay Gatsby character analysis.
Nick Carraway: The Biased Narrator
Nick Carraway is our guide through the glittering and morally treacherous world of The Great Gatsby, but he’s far from a simple, objective camera lens. A young Midwesterner who comes east to learn the bond business, he presents himself as a man inclined to “reserve all judgments.”
Yet, his entire narrative is a profound, sometimes unconscious, act of judgment, a meticulous attempt to find meaning and impose a moral order on the chaotic events of that fateful summer. His role is complicated; he’s both the fascinated observer and an unwilling, and later, complicit participant in the drama.
Nick’s self-proclaimed honesty is one of the novel’s great ironies. His claim to be “one of the few honest people” he has ever known is consistently challenged by his actions, facilitating Gatsby and Daisy’s affair, downplaying his romantic entanglements, and remaining silent after Myrtle’s death. His narration reveals a man grappling with his own “main character syndrome,” believing he’s the moral center of the story, while his actions often reveal deep-seated biases.
This is evident in his consistent, almost compulsive, need to categorize people by their ethnic and racial backgrounds, a subtle but telling pattern that complicates his supposedly objective viewpoint. His final, powerful condemnation of the “careless people” is as much a verdict on them as it is a justification for his ultimate loyalty to Gatsby.
To deconstruct his crucial role as the story’s complex and subjective narrator, read our in-depth Nick Carraway character analysis.
Daisy Buchanan: The Golden Girl in a Gilded Cage
Daisy Buchanan is the luminous, elusive object of Jay Gatsby’s obsession, a woman whose identity is defined by the “inexhaustible charm” of her voice, which Gatsby astutely identifies as being “full of money.” She’s the “golden girl” of East Egg, but her captivating performance of social grace masks a profound spiritual ennui and a paralyzing indecisiveness.
Her character is a tragic study in the limitations placed upon women of her class. She recognizes the hollowness of her world but lacks the courage to leave its protective, gilded cage.
We see her character not in what she declares, but in what she reveals through moments of startling honesty and emotional contradiction. Her cynical wish for her daughter to be a “beautiful little fool” is a bitter acknowledgment of her own perceived powerlessness.
Her emotional breakdown over Gatsby’s “beautiful shirts” isn’t simple materialism; it’s a visceral reaction to the tangible proof of a life of passionate devotion she abandoned for one of “unquestionable practicality.”
As contemporary feminist critiques have explored, Daisy’s choices, while destructive, are made within a deeply patriarchal system that values her for her beauty and social position rather than her independence. Her final, careless retreat with Tom isn’t just an act of self-preservation, but the predictable outcome for a woman conditioned to prioritize security above all else.
Explore the complexities of her motivations and her symbolic role in our full Daisy Buchanan character analysis.
Tom Buchanan: The Brutal Enforcer of the Old Guard
Tom Buchanan moves through the world with the unthinking confidence of a man for whom power has always been a birthright. Fitzgerald introduces him not by his wealth, but by his physicality: a “cruel body” with “enormous power,” a relic of football stardom that now fuels a “supercilious manner” and a constant “leaning aggressively forward” [Chapter 1, Page 7].
This physical dominance is his primary tool of enforcement, used to physically compel Nick from a room or, in a “short deft movement,” to break Myrtle’s nose for the transgression of speaking Daisy’s name [Chapters 1, 2]. He doesn’t argue for his place in the world; he occupies it with force.
His worldview is a fortress built to protect his status. He clings to racist, pseudo-scientific theories from books like “‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’” not out of intellectual curiosity, but as a desperate justification for his “Nordic” supremacy, revealing a deep-seated fear of losing his place at the top of the social hierarchy [Chapter 1, Page 13].
This same panicked possessiveness defines his relationships. He conducts a brazen, public affair with Myrtle. Yet when faced with Daisy’s love for Gatsby, he reacts with outraged hypocrisy, appointing himself the defender of “family life and family institutions” [Chapter 7, Page 130].
His final, calculated lie to George Wilson, directing a grieving man toward Gatsby, is the ultimate act of this worldview. It isn’t merely self-preservation; it’s the brutal, careless act of a man who sees others as instruments or obstacles, to be used or removed in the preservation of his unassailable world.
For a deep dive into his role as a symbol of power, privilege, and hypocrisy, see our complete Tom Buchanan character analysis.
The Supporting Cast: Catalysts and Contrasts
Beyond the central quartet, a crucial supporting cast provides social commentary, drives the plot, and offers powerful foils to the main characters. Jordan Baker and the Wilsons represent two distinct poles of the novel’s social world, from the cynical freedom of the wealthy to the desperate entrapment of the working class.
Jordan Baker: The Cynical “New Woman”
Jordan Baker, with her cool, “jaunty” demeanor and status as a professional golf champion, moves through the novel as a striking embodiment of the Jazz Age “New Woman.” She’s independent, athletic, and navigates the opulent social scenes of East Egg and Gatsby’s parties with a cynical detachment that Nick Carraway finds both alluring and unsettling.
Her entire persona is a study in calculated self-preservation. She famously prefers large parties because they’re “so intimate,” a paradox that reveals her belief that emotional safety lies in the anonymity of the crowd, not in genuine connection [Chapter 3, Page 49].
Her character is defined by what Nick calls an “incurable dishonesty,” a trait revealed not just in the rumor that she cheated in a golf tournament, but in her entire philosophy of life. Her assertion that “It takes two to make an accident” is a metaphor for her worldview: a belief in deflecting responsibility, confident that others will make way for her own “careless” path [Chapter 3, Page 58].
While she serves as a vital plot catalyst by revealing Gatsby’s past to Nick, she remains an emotionally guarded observer. Her relationship with Nick ultimately fails because her pragmatic cynicism can’t coexist with the moral reckoning he undergoes. This makes her a powerful symbol of the era’s alluring but often alienating modernity.
Analyze her embodiment of Jazz Age modernity in our full Jordan Baker character analysis.
Myrtle Wilson: The Tragic Social Climber
Trapped in the desolate Valley of Ashes, Myrtle Wilson is a figure of raw, “perceptible vitality” whose energy contrasts with her bleak surroundings [Chapter 2, Pages 25, 26]. She desperately seeks to escape her marriage to the “spiritless” George and the oppressive dust of her social class.
Her affair with Tom Buchanan isn’t just a matter of passion; it’s her sole, tragic vehicle for social aspiration. She clings to the material trappings of his world, the puppy, the New York apartment, the lavish dresses, as proof of her elevated status. It’s a life she feels she was always meant to have.
Myrtle’s attempts to perform a higher class are both poignant and revealing. In the city apartment, her “impressive hauteur” is a costume she wears as proudly as her cream-colored chiffon dress. Her persona shatters under Tom’s brutal assertion of power when she dares to speak Daisy’s name.
Her story embodies a desperate, materialistic perversion of the American Dream. Her tragic end is a brutal indictment of the class system; she’s killed by a car that symbolizes the very wealth she craved, driven by the woman whose position she could never attain, making her the ultimate victim of the elite’s careless world.
Explore her doomed aspirations and symbolic role in our complete Myrtle Wilson character analysis.
George Wilson: The Ash-Gray Man of the Wasteland
George Wilson, Myrtle’s “spiritless” husband, is a man physically and spiritually bleached by the Valley of Ashes. He’s the forgotten man of the novel, a hardworking but unsuccessful mechanic whose goodness is no match for the oppressive environment that surrounds him.
Initially presented as a passive and almost invisible figure, “his wife’s man and not his own,” George is transformed by the discovery of Myrtle’s infidelity and her subsequent violent death [Chapter 7, Page 137]. His grief, left unguided and unattended, curdles into a desperate need for justice.
His tragedy is a study in delusion and manipulation. In a world devoid of moral guidance, he tragically mistakes the vacant, commercial eyes of the Doctor T. J. Eckleburg billboard for the omniscient eyes of God, believing they grant him a divine mandate for revenge. This delusion makes him tragically susceptible to Tom Buchanan’s cruel and calculated deception.
George’s final, violent act, the murder of Gatsby and his suicide, isn’t the action of a simple villain, but of a broken man, an unwitting instrument of the elite’s carelessness. He represents the complete and devastating failure of the American Dream for the working poor, a man consumed by the very “foul dust” the wealthy leave in their wake.
Explore his tragic descent and symbolic significance in our complete George Wilson character analysis.
Meyer Wolfsheim: The Corrupt Foundation
Meyer Wolfsheim is the shadowy architect of Gatsby’s fortune and a chilling embodiment of the Jazz Age’s criminal underworld.
A man notorious for fixing the 1919 World Series, his brief appearances are laden with unsettling symbolism, from his sentimental stories of murdered gangsters to his infamous cufflinks, which he proudly identifies as “the finest specimens of human molars” [Chapter 4, Page 72]. He’s more than just a business associate; he’s the concrete proof of the “foul dust” that clings to Gatsby’s dream, grounding its romantic idealism in a sordid reality of organized crime.
Wolfsheim represents a cynical, pragmatic worldview that preys on Gatsby’s hopefulness. His character is a study in contradictions: a “sentimental” man who reminisces about old friends, yet whose ultimate loyalty is to self-preservation, as evidenced by his refusal to attend Gatsby’s funeral.
Critically, his association with Gatsby is not just a moral stain but a fatal vulnerability. It’s the revelation of this illicit connection that Tom Buchanan uses as a weapon to discredit Gatsby in Daisy’s eyes, shattering his carefully constructed persona and precipitating his tragic end. Wolfsheim, the man who “made” Gatsby, becomes an unwitting instrument in his destruction.
Uncover his role as Gatsby’s “shadowy architect” in our Meyer Wolfsheim character analysis.
Dan Cody: The Flawed Mentor
Dan Cody is the foundational ghost in Gatsby’s past, a millionaire yachtsman and “pioneer debauchee” who never appears alive but whose influence is undeniable [Chapter 6, Page 100].
As a product of the raw, ruthless capitalism of the Gilded Age, Cody represented “all the beauty and glamor in the world” to the young, ambitious James Gatz. He provided Gatsby with a new name and a five-year “singularly appropriate education” in the ways of the ultra-rich. But this mentorship was deeply flawed. He teaches Gatsby how to perform wealth but also exposes him to a world of moral carelessness and excess.
Cody’s legacy is a paradox of opportunity and corruption. From him, Gatsby learned practical lessons, such as a cautionary aversion to alcohol. However, he also inherited a worldview in which wealth was disconnected from moral purpose.
The most crucial lesson came with Cody’s death, when his mistress, Ella Kaye, cunningly secured his entire fortune, cheating Gatsby of his $25,000 inheritance. This early, harsh lesson in betrayal undoubtedly shaped Gatsby’s later pragmatism and his alliance with figures like Meyer Wolfsheim.
Dan Cody is the architect of Gatsby’s persona, the man who gave him the tools to build his illusion, but whose own tragic end foreshadowed the vulnerability of a life built on such unstable foundations.
Learn about his crucial influence in our Dan Cody character analysis.
Owl Eyes: The Perceptive Observer
The eccentric, bespectacled man Nick discovers in Gatsby’s library is a potent symbol of perception in a world of illusion.
Known to the reader only as “Owl Eyes,” his very anonymity underscores his function as an allegorical figure rather than a fully formed individual. His gaze defines him.
In one of the novel’s most revealing scenes, he’s astonished to find Gatsby’s books are “absolutely real,” yet astutely notes their pages are uncut, exposing the profound theatricality of Gatsby’s intellectual facade [Chapter 3, Page 45]. He sees through one layer of the illusion while marveling at its “thoroughness.”
However, his wisdom is ironically complicated by his appearance at a chaotic car crash, where he seems comically detached from practical reality. This contradiction suggests his “sight” is more symbolic than literal.
His most significant act comes at Gatsby’s desolate funeral. As one of the only former guests to attend, his presence provides a moment of genuine, if unconventional, respect. His simple, crude lament, “The poor son-of-a-bitch,” cuts through all pretense to acknowledge Gatsby’s tragic humanity [Chapter 9, Page 175].
Owl Eyes is a complex symbol of flawed but persistent human insight, a man who, in a world of indifference, at least tries to see things for what they are.
Explore his symbolic significance in our Owl Eyes character analysis.
Henry C. Gatz: The Grounding Reality
Henry C. Gatz, Gatsby’s estranged father, arrives from the Midwest only after his son’s death, a “solemn old man” whose very presence grounds the magnificent myth of “Jay Gatsby” in the humble reality of “Jimmy Gatz” [Chapter 9, Page 167].
His character provides a poignant contrast to the opulent, morally ambiguous world his son inhabited. Mr. Gatz’s perception of his son’s life is a mixture of grief and an almost naive, awed pride in the material success he sees, unable or unwilling to comprehend its corrupt foundations.
His most crucial function is to reveal the blueprint for his son’s ambition. By showing Nick the “ragged old copy” of ‘Hopalong Cassidy’ with the young Jimmy’s meticulous schedule for self-improvement, he uncovers a more traditional, Ben Franklin-esque version of the American Dream based on discipline and hard work [Chapter 9, Page 173].
This artifact humanizes Gatsby, revealing the earnest boy he once was. Mr. Gatz’s proud comparison of his son to the railroad tycoon James J. Hill further highlights a generational gap in understanding success, framing Gatsby’s illicit fortune through a lens of legitimate industrial greatness.
He represents the inescapable past and the authentic family connection that Gatsby sacrificed for his dream.
Understand his tragic role in our Henry Gatz character analysis.
Ewing Klipspringer: The Parasitic Guest
Ewing Klipspringer, known simply as “the boarder,” is a masterful sketch of the superficiality that permeated Gatsby’s social world. He’s the guest who never left, a man who enjoys the full benefits of Gatsby’s hospitality, shelter, food, and entertainment, without offering any genuine friendship in return.
His presence symbolizes the transactional nature of the relationships Gatsby cultivated; Klipspringer isn’t a friend but a parasite, a man whose actions reveal a psyche entirely focused on his comfort and security. His reluctant piano playing during Daisy’s reunion is a performance rendered only upon command, not out of camaraderie.
His character is crystallized in his final, infamous phone call after Gatsby’s death. He calls not to offer condolences but to retrieve a pair of tennis shoes, claiming he’s “sort of helpless without them” [Chapter 9, Page 169].
This moment is more than mere selfishness; as our deep-dive analysis explores through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it reveals a man with an arrested psychological development, incapable of processing higher-level obligations like loyalty or grief because he is perpetually stuck at the most basic level of securing his material comfort.
Klipspringer is the chilling embodiment of the fair-weather crowd, a testament to Gatsby’s ultimate, tragic isolation.
See our deep dive into the psychology of Klipspringer, ‘the boarder,’
Catherine and The McKees: A Portrait of Social Striving
The guests at Myrtle’s New York apartment, her sister Catherine and the downstairs neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. McKee, are a collective portrait of the striving middle class on the fringes of wealth. They’re fascinated by and desperate to connect with Tom Buchanan’s world.
Catherine performs a version of “worldly” sophistication, sharing fabricated stories of European travels and spreading rumors she treats as insider knowledge. Mr. McKee, a “pale, feminine” photographer, attempts to leverage his mediocre art for social entry, while his “shrill” wife, Lucille, uses flattery and casual prejudice to assert her place.
Their single, dense scene in Chapter 2 is a masterclass in social anxiety and artifice. But it concludes with one of the novel’s most debated ambiguities. Nick’s fragmented narration of leaving the party with Mr. McKee, including a tense moment with an elevator operator and an unexplained appearance in McKee’s bedroom, has led to significant critical interpretation regarding the novel’s subtext and Nick’s reliability as a narrator.
These minor characters serve a crucial dual function: they illuminate the desperate social climbing beneath the elite, and they act as catalysts for revealing the hidden complexities of the narrator.
Take a deep dive into the psychology and analysis of Catherine’s and the McKees’ social maneuvering.
Michaelis: The Voice of Reason in the Wasteland
Michaelis, the Greek immigrant who runs the coffee shop next to Wilson’s garage, is the novel’s anchor of human decency in its most desolate setting.
When tragedy strikes the Valley of Ashes, he’s the one who stays, acting as the primary witness to Myrtle’s death and the sole comforter to a grieving, unraveling George Wilson. He represents a simple, pragmatic compassion that contrasts with the careless indifference of the novel’s elite and the desperate passions of his neighbors.
His significance deepens as he becomes a substitute narrator for the events of that tragic night; it’s through his testimony that Nick reconstructs George’s descent into madness. In the novel’s crucial confrontation between delusion and reality, Michaelis provides the voice of sanity, calmly insisting to a distraught Wilson that the looming eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are merely “an advertisement” [Chapter 8, Page 160].
While Nick’s narration consistently marks him as an ethnic outsider, it is this very outsider who displays the deepest sense of community and moral responsibility, making his character a powerful, quiet critique of the society around him.
Discover the full significance of his role in our complete Michaelis character analysis.
Pammy Buchanan: The Unrepeatable Past
Pammy Buchanan, Tom and Daisy’s toddler daughter, is not a developed character but arguably one of the novel’s most powerful and devastating symbols.
Her single, brief appearance in Chapter 7 is the tangible, living proof that the past five years can’t be erased, shattering Gatsby’s dream with her very existence. When Gatsby sees her, Nick notes that he looks at the child with “surprise,” as if he “had ever really believed in its existence before.” In that moment, Pammy becomes the inconvenient truth that Gatsby’s wealth and willpower can’t overcome.
More significant than her presence is her strategic absence from the novel’s emotional climax at the Plaza Hotel. As her parents’ marriage disintegrates, she’s never mentioned, revealing that the conflict is one of ego and possession, not family. This narrative omission is a damning indictment of Tom and Daisy’s self-absorption.
Pammy symbolizes the greatest casualty of her parents’ “vast carelessness”: a future generation treated as a beautiful but neglected accessory, a life set to inherit immense wealth but not genuine parental love.
Explore her full symbolic significance in our analysis of Pammy Buchanan’s role.
Fleeting Figures: The Ghosts in Gatsby’s Machine
Beyond the main cast, Fitzgerald populates his world with fleeting figures who, in a single line or scene, offer crucial insights into the novel’s themes of corruption, class, and isolation.
Slagle, the man who calls from Detroit after Gatsby’s death, looking to resolve a criminal matter (“Young Parke’s in trouble”), is a harsh reminder of the ongoing, impersonal nature of Gatsby’s illicit business. This machine keeps running even after its operator is gone [Chapter 9, Page 166].
Nick’s Finnish housekeeper, who “muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove,” represents his initial loneliness and isolation upon arriving in the East, a quiet, culturally distinct presence in the background of his new life [Chapter 1, Page 4].
Together, these minor voices create a rich, realistic social texture, highlighting the vast, often unseen, network of individuals who support, enable, or are simply bewildered by the lives of the central characters.
An Unforgettable Cast of a Hollow Age
The characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are more than just players in a tragedy; they’re a carefully constructed ecosystem of dreamers, enforcers, victims, and observers who collectively embody the novel’s profound critique of the American Dream.
From the magnificent Gatsby to the brutal Tom, the cynical Jordan to the tragic Wilsons, each figure acts as a crucial lens through which Fitzgerald examines the dazzling promises and moral failures of the Jazz Age.
Fitzgerald’s true genius lies in creating not just one memorable character, but a constellation of them. The supporting cast, from the shadowy influence of Meyer Wolfsheim to the grounding reality of Henry Gatz, provides the essential context and commentary that give the central story its weight.
Together, they force us to confront the complex human truths behind the glittering facade of a bygone era, which is why they continue to resonate with each new generation of readers. For a deeper look at the novel’s overarching ideas, explore our full analysis of The Great Gatsby or our collection of its most iconic quotes.
A Note on Page Numbers & Edition:
We carefully sourced textual references for this analysis from The Great Gatsby: The Only Authorized Edition (Scribner, November 17, 2020), ISBN-13: 978-1982149482. Just as Gatsby’s parties were filled with guests from every social stratum, page numbers for specific events can differ across various printings. Always double-check against your copy to ensure accuracy for essays or citations.
Jeremy Mortis, founder of Ageless Investing, applies a rigorous analytical approach (the AAM framework) to distill timeless wisdom and contextualized quotes from classic literature, saving you time while deepening understanding. Learn more about Jeremy’s unique background and methodology on his author bio page.