Nick Carraway: A man in his late twenties originally from Midwest, he has moved East to Long Island's West Egg to start a new life working in bonds in nearby New York City. Having attended Yale University with Tom Buchanan before his service in the war, he continues to feel set apart from the luxurious lifestyle of these people in the East and after rejecting this way of life, moves back to the West. He turns thirty on the evening Myrtle Wilson is killed. Nick alone seems to care after his neighbor Gatsby dies and goes about arranging the funeral himself.
Jay Gatsby: Five years before moving to West Egg in pursuit of Daisy whom he has never stopped loving, Gatsby was sent off to Europe for the war, after which he claimed he had gone to Oxford University. Raised by a farm family in the Midwest like Nick, and also in his late twenties, he has earned his wealth from shady business dealings hoping that Daisy will take him back. He throws wild weekend parties throughout the summer for people whom he hardly knows although these end after Daisy expresses her distaste of them. His illusion of being a distinguished gentleman is shattered by a very jealous Tom Buchanan. Daisy is appalled although Gatsby refuses to give up the chase, waiting for her to call him until the very moment he dies.
Daisy Buchanan: A relative of Nick Carraway, this 'golden girl' was also from the West before moving to Long Island's East Egg with her husband Tom. She has always enjoyed luxury and had rejected Gatsby five years earlier due to his lack of wealth and shows a renewed interest only when he shows her the riches that he has come to earn. An unhappy person at heart due to her regrets about being married to Tom, it is she who kills Myrtle while driving Gatsby's station wagon. Afterwards she disappears from Long Island with Buchanan, failing to appear at the funeral. She has a baby daughter, Pammy, although she seems to spend little time with her.
Tom Buchanan: A big football star at Yale University, he had since continued to live off his Chicago-based family's wealth and married Daisy before travelling to France and then returning to the US and settling down in East Egg. He thinks himself to be an intelligent man, constantly babbling random facts he has read or heard, although he has few opinions of his own aside from the possessiveness he feels towards Daisy. At the same time, however, he sees no wrongdoing in having an affair with Myrtle Wilson; it is Tom who tells George Wilson that the car that ran into his wife had belonged to Gatsby, unaware perhaps that his own wife had been the driver.
Jordan Baker: A sportswoman, Baker is somewhat of a celebrity. Nick recalls how she had lied about moving a golf ball at a tournament years before but doesn't let this stop his pursuit of her. In the midst of Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, and Gatsby with their twisted love relationships, Jordan seems to be indifferent and set apart as does Nick. She offers comfort to him later although after Myrtle's death he becomes cold to her, completely disgusted with everyone in the East. Baker has been friends with Daisy for many years and remembers Gatsby from when he and Daisy first met.
George Wilson: A 'sick man' as Nick describes him, he operates a ramshackle gas station in the ash heap. Oblivious to his wife's affair until discovering the dog collar Tom had bought for her, he goes mad with rage and locks her inside, declaring that he is going to take her away to the Midwest. After his wife's death he goes crazy and embarks on a shooting rampage, killing Gatsby and then himself.
Myrtle Wilson: Desirous of wealth, she was heartbroken after learning that George had borrowed his wedding suit. Tom Buchanan offers her presents and fancy clothes when the two begin having an affair and she is hopeful that he will leave Daisy to be with her despite his excuses for not doing it already. Running into the street in front of the gas station to escape her maniacal husband, Myrtle is run over and killed by Daisy driving Gatsby's station wagon. Her battered body is laid upon a workbench inside the garage.
Minor Characters
Finnish woman: While Gatsby and Tom Buchanan have many servants to care for their homes, Nick has only this woman to cook and clean his ramshackle home on West Egg.
Baby: Called 'Pammy,' she is mentioned only twice although Daisy is her mother. When a nurse brings the child out, Daisy ignores the child's question about the whereabouts of her father, admiring how beautiful the girl is, just like her. She wishes only that her baby be a 'beautiful little fool' since Daisy thinks she has had such a hard life herself.
Catherine: Myrtle's sister, she seems possessive over the furniture in Tom's New York apartment and does not drink. On the night of Myrtle's death she is found to be in a drunken stupor and later denies any claims that her sister had been cheating on George after he shot Gatsby in a jealous rage and then shot himself.
Chester McKee: A photographer who attended Tom's little party in New York, McKee behaves according to some deep artistic insight, examining Myrtle's figure as potential for her to be one of his models. He ignores his wife when she offers advice, and bores Nick after taking him back to his own room to show him picture after picture that he has taken of scenes from New York and Long Island. He said he had been to one of Gatsby's parties.
Mrs. McKee: She claims to be quite happily married to her husband when Myrtle laments her own troubles. In admiring Myrtle's dress so much, the woman gives the dress to Mrs. McKee although it had been a gift of Tom. Mrs. McKee's husband, Chester, ignores her when she offers advice.
Owl Eyes: Bearing a pair of spectacles, he is found drunkenly muttering about the books in Gatsby's library. When a car's wheel breaks off after the party, he is the passenger in the car and appears later at the funeral already waiting for Nick's arrival. He expresses disgust that so few had come to bury Gatsby.
Meyer Wolfsheim: An older man about fifty years old, he recalls memories in his past and about business 'gonnegtions.' He involved Gatsby in shady business dealings to build up his wealth and supposedly fixed the World Series in 1919. He declines to attend the funeral since he has learned to show friendship when men are alive and not dead.
Klipspringer: A free boarder at Gatsby's mansion, he seems ungrateful by refusing to play the piano for Jay and Daisy, complaining that he's too tired. He is unable to attend Gatsby's funeral since he has to go to a picnic in Connecticut instead and asks Nick to mail him a pair of shoes he had left at the mansion. Disgusted, Carraway hangs up the phone without a response.
Dan Cody: Serving as a mentor in Jay's youth, Cody was a millionaire yachtsman whose inheritance was invalidated by a woman, Ella Kaye, and Gatsby was left only with the education this man had given him about how to live. A picture of Cody hangs on the wall in his mansion.
Ella Kaye: A love interest of Dan Cody, who invalidated Cody's last will in order to get the $25,000 Dan left as an inheritance to Jay Gatsby. Jay sees Ella as a simple gold digger, who patiently bided her time, but doesn't feel bitter about the money because he feels he gained so much in experience from Dan.
Biloxi: This man had fainted at Daisy's wedding due to the heat. Buchanan calls him a fraud since Biloxi had told Daisy he was president of Tom's class at Yale University. But Tom's class didn't even have a president.
Michaelis: This Greek man ran a restaurant near Wilson's gas station in the ash heap and comforts him after his wife is killed. Worried at hearing his irrational words, Michaelis had stayed with him at the garage until going home for a nap late at night. George then sneaked out across Long Island to find the man who killed his wife.
Henry C. Gatz: The father of Gatsby, Gatz talks about how great his son had been and how much potential he had. Jay had bought Gatz's house for him in Minnesota in spite of telling Nick that all of his family was dead. Although Gatsby seemed to be the least proud of his homely father, in the end it is this man who comes from halfway across the country to bury his son while Daisy, whom Gatsby had loved for five years, fails to appear.
