How did Daisy and Gatsby meet in The Great Gatsby?

With autobiographical overtones to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby comes from another part of the country to Camp Taylor near St. Louis, Missouri. While stationed there he met Daisy when he joined other officers who went to her luxurious house.

Amazed by her house and wealth, Jay Gatsby took Daisy under false pretenses because he led her to believe that he, too, came from a wealthy family. Nevertheless, "he felt married to her, that was all." He sacrificed his visionary dream to material acquisition as he was so impressed by Daisy's wealth. In Chapter Eight, Gatsby tells Nick,

"Well, there I was, way off my ambitions, getting deeper in love every minute, and all of a sudden I didn't care. What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?"

It was then that Daisy became Gatsby's "grail." Thenceforth, all that he did was designed for the attainment of this grail. Having led her to believe that he was wealthy, Gatsby set out to become rich. Five years later, his dream reduced to material gain, Gatsby returns to recapture Daisy. but, while he has been gone, she has found a substitute for Gatsby in Tom Buchanan, who has proposed with a $350,000 pearl necklace. Now, he must re-win Daisy.

In chapter four Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby fell in love with Daisy in 1917, so early in the book we see that the two have a long history. Nick doesn't know the full extent of their relationship until later in the book.

In chapter eight, after the death of Myrtle, Nick is having a hard time sleeping. He goes over to Gatsby's house to try to convince him to leave town until everything is sorted out. Gatsby refuses to leave. He knows that leaving town means leaving Daisy. Gatsby then begins to tell Nick of how they met. It was 1917 in Louisville, Kentucky. Gatsby was stationed nearby and met Daisy. He was instant smitten with her wealth. He was also very attracted to her beauty and youthful innocence. Gatsby knew that Daisy would not give him a chance, if she knew that he was poor. He decides then to lie about his past and his current circumstances. As the time comes closer for Gatsby to go to war, Daisy promises to wait for him. The two then sleep together, as if sealing their pact. Daisy, however, doesn't wait for Gatsby. She ends up marrying Tom, who is her social equal. Tom is also the choice of her parents. 

This chapter is the catalysis of the whole story. We learn that Gatsby is just as obsessed with Daisy as he is wealth. He doesn't want to leave town, because being without Daisy again, is like a death for him. In the end he dies without her anyway. Neither his love for Daisy or his love of wealth, can save him.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, the novel's narrator, describes his first visit, upon moving from the Midwest to Long Island, New York, to the palatial estate of Tom and Daisy Buchanan.  As Nick notes in the first chapter of Fitzgerald's novel, "Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago."  Daisy, of course, will come to play a major role in Nick's tale of life among the elite of New York society and of the fascinating figure of Jay Gatsby.  Gatsby's obsession with the unattainable Daisy, and Nick's gradual discovery of his new neighbor's past -- a past that involved considerable wealth accumulated through criminal activities and an identity vastly different from that presented to the public he sought to deceive -- provide the content of Fitzgerald's novel.  Daisy, a vacuous but beautiful and vivacious woman, will ultimately prove the instrument of Gatsby's doom.

Nick and Daisy are distantly related to one another.  We learn this in the first chapter, when Nick says,

Daisy was my second cousin once removed (10).

Nick goes on to explain that he had known Tom, Daisy's husband in college and that after he had returned from World War I, he had spend a few days with them in their Chicago home.  When Nick decides to go East, it is natural that he would look up his relative and his old college friend.

This chapter really sets the stage for one of the themes of the book. All of these people are related or connected in some way, and all of them are of the same approximate class. The reader can see that these characters and many others of their "set" are not necessarily nice, smart, or hard-working, but that they all accept one another easily.  Gatsby stands out quite clearly as an outsider. 

The first time that Daisy and Gatsby met was five years prior to this story taking place.  Jordan Baker decribes how she came upon the couple one day in Louisville, KY, where she says that Gatsby was looking at Daisy "in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime" (chapter 4).  Gatsby was a lieutenant in the army, about to ship out for World War I, so their courtship was short. 

The next time they meet, Gatsby has asked Nick to arrange a tea for Daisy and Gatsby at Nick's house (chapter 5).  Whereas before, when they first met, there was an ease about them, this next meeting shows that both are uneasy:

Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair.

Both characters do not know where this meeting will lead, and there has been five years between their last meeting, but Gatsby's entire dream rests on this meeting going well.  Nick comments at the end of chapter 5, "There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion."  Because Gatsby believes that he can repeat the past, and because the reader knows that no one can rewind the clock five years, this meeting is the beginning of the end of Gatsby's illusion.

How does Nick meet Gatsby in The Great Gatsby?

Nick first sees Gatsby from afar when he comes home from dinner at Tom and Daisy's. It's shadowy outside in the moonlight when Nick discerns a figure from the mansion next door:

standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars.

Something about his posture convinces Nick this must be Mr. Gatsby. However, before Nick can call to him, Gatsby stretches his trembling arm out towards the green light on the opposite dock. Nick gets the feeling Gatsby wants to be left alone, so he doesn't speak.

In chapter three, Nick meets Gatsby properly. Nick runs into him at his party, but he doesn't know he is Gatsby, having not been able to see him clearly in the dark when he'd glimpsed him before. They discuss both having served in World War I in France. Nick then asks him about their host, and Gatsby says he is the host, Gatsby. After this confusion is over, Nick finally clearly can put a name to the face of this elusive figure.

Nick comments on Gatsby's charm at this first meeting, saying that Gatsby had a reassuring quality that put him at his ease and made him feel as if Gatsby was concentrating on him in an intense and favorable way. This shows Nick falling under Gatsby's spell from the start.

Nick has spent some time studying the parties of his neighbor Gatsby. From a distance, he has realized the cycle of organization that both prepares for a grand celebration each weekend and cleans up after the festive party goers. Crates of oranges and lemons arrive on Fridays. Eight servants and a gardener spend all day each Monday scrubbing and hammering to clean up the "ravages" of each party.

Nick keeps his distance from his neighbor's festivities until he receives a personal invitation early on a Saturday morning. In a "surprisingly formal note," Gatsby conveys that it would be his honor if Nick would attend his "little party" that night. He acknowledges that he has seen Nick around their homes but has failed to pay a proper visit.

Nick appears as much the spectator of both the grandeur and the guests who remind him of both "moths" and "gypsies." Nick and Jordan circulate through the crowds and finally sit together at a table with a man about his age and a "rowdy little girl."

The man turns to Nick and asks him if he served in the Third Division during the war. Nick acknowledges that he was in the Ninth Machine-Gun Battalion, and the man tells him that he "knew [he'd] seen [him] somewhere before." The men continue pleasant conversation. Eventually, Nick comments offhandedly that he hasn't even seen the host of the party. The man he's been chatting with turns to him and notes, "I'm Gatsby."

Although he'd seen Gatsby from a distance and although their paths seem to have crossed during the war, Nick fails to recognize his neighbor at the party in close conversation.