Speculative Writing: What Happened in the Great Gatsby Before the Story Started

John Richalds
Ms. Johnsonsy
English 3
5/27/13
Great Gatsby: What Happened Before the Story Started? Jay Gatsby had left Oxford College after just five months of being there. He then meets a man named Meyer Wolfsheim and goes into a secretive business with him. Gatsby, remembering his first love, Daisy Buchanan, saying, “rich girls don’t marry poor boys,” knows that he has to become wealthy to ever have a chance at her again. After a short while of being in the business with Wolfsheim, Gatsby starts to make good money. He starts saving his money in hopes of buying a house in West Egg, which was the wealthiest part of Long Island, New York. This was a place of new money. He knew that if he could buy a house there it would be possible for him to rekindle his love with Daisy, who lived with her husband on East Egg, which was a place of slightly older money. Before Gatsby started looking for houses on West Egg, he looked up anyone that was close to Daisy to see if they lived on West Egg. He thought that if he could become good friends with one of Daisy’s family members, he could invite Daisy over to his house with that person so it wouldn’t be quite as awkward seeing her for the first time in nearly five years. Sure enough, he found a man named Nick Carraway, who was Daisy’s close family member. Creepily, he found out exactly where Mr. Carraway lived on West Egg in hopes of finding a house very close to him. Once he found Carraway’s house, he started looking for a mansion that would impress Daisy. Lucky for Gatsby, there was a gorgeous mansion that sat right next door to Carraway. Also, to make things even better, the mansion sat directly across from Daisy’s house on East Egg. The only thing that separated the houses was the beautiful bay. Gatsby thought he had it all figured out, except there was one small problem. The very wealthy man that owned the house had no intention of selling it. Gatsby spent weeks negotiating with the man to get him to sell the house, but the stubborn man wouldn’t budge, even after Gatsby offered him a price that any sane human being could not refuse.
Gatsby came to the realization that he would have to use extreme measures on the situation. Jay talked to Wolfsheim about hiring their trained assassin, which they used on stubborn people, much like this man, who didn’t want to make a deal with them in their secretive business. Wolfsheim knew how important Daisy was to Jay, so he let him use their assassin to take care of the problem. After the assassin slipped a few cyanide capsules into the stubborn man’s water at lunch, he was no longer a nuisance to Gatsby. Gatsby waited a few weeks to buy the house so he didn’t raise any suspicions that he could possibly be the killer.
Once Gatsby was completely moved into his new house, he started throwing elegant parties that were full of bright lights. He threw them just about every Saturday during that summer in hopes that Mr. Carraway would see them and be intrigued by them. After some time watching Carraway, Gatsby decided to invite him to one of his parties. He knew that this was the perfect opportunity to befriend Mr. Carraway and somehow get closer to his sweetheart, Daisy.