Great Gatsby Map

“Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water." -

East Egg

This quote describes the lavish mansions of East Egg, which are depicted as opulent and luxurious, adorned with wealth and privilege. The use of the term "white palaces" and the mention of their glittering appearance conveys an impression of grandeur and splendor. It highlights the extravagant lifestyle of the old money aristocracy who reside in East Egg, representing the upper class of society during the 1920s.

“I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming-pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion.”

West Egg

The "less fashionable" of the two Long Island peninsulas, West Egg, is described by Nick as a region where modest homes like his own are tucked amid opulent mansions with large estates. Nick had earlier referred to his own residence as "a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow" that he rented for only $80 a month, in stark contrast to his neighbors, who paid "twelve or fifteen thousand a season." However, Nick's portrayal of Gatsby's home raises questions about the artificiality of the wealthy West Egg residents. Gatsby's mansion is a duplicate of a structure in France, while appearing to be enormous, opulent, and stylish. It is a deceptive ripoff of money and position from the Old World.

“When I passed the ashheaps on the train that morning I had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car.”

Nick can't bring himself to stop on his way to work the morning after Daisy murders Myrtle by running her over with Gatsby's automobile. Nick had previously witnessed the valley of ashes as the physical manifestation of the idea of moral and social degradation. He now finds it impossible to endure to stare at the scene of Myrtle's premature death, which will go unpunished due to Daisy's wealth and privilege.

Valley of Ashes

“Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world”

New York

While driving across the Queensboro Bridge with Gatsby, Nick gives a favorable assessment of New York. His positive attitude towards the city suggests that the environment was working with his emotions to help him recreate his earlier experiences there before the city's concealed darkness became apparent to him.

"And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder."

Long Island Sound & Atlantic Ocean

The area around Gatsby's estate, which sits on the northern edge of Long Island Sound and faces the Atlantic Ocean, is described in the aforementioned quotation as the setting of Long Island. As the narrator considers the history of this region, the quote exudes a sense of wonder and enchantment.

"I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life."

Middle East

This quote is narrated by Nick Carraway, the protagonist of the novel, and reflects on the characters' origins and backgrounds as Westerners, specifically from the Middle West of the United States. It suggests that the characters' origins in the Middle West may have shaped or formed their behavior and attitudes, and made them "unadaptable to Eastern life," which refers to the social and cultural norms of the East Coast, the East Egg and West Egg areas of Long Island in particular .