When Nick attends his first party at Gatsby's, he and Jordan go into the library and meet a drunk man wearing round glasses who is inspecting the books. The man is amazed that the books on the shelves are real, and he refers to Gatsby as "a regular Belasco" (45). David Belasco was a theater producer, director, and playwright who lived from 1853 to 1931; thus, he would have been alive when the text was written and set. In making such a comparison, the owl-eyed man implies that Gatsby is good at building a realistic set or stage; he's adept at creating believable facades.
Gatsby later introduces Nick to a gambler named "Mr. [Meyer] Wolfsheim" who takes credit for having fixed the 1919 World's Series (69, 73). This character was inspired by, and thus alludes to, Arnold Rothstein, a real-life racketeer who did, indeed, help to fix the World's Series in 1919. That Gatsby hangs out with this kind of person should give readers -- and Nick -- some insight into the kind of business dealings he has. They are shady at best; illegal and immoral at worst.
After Gatsby and Daisy finally reunite and she dislikes the one party she attends, Nick says that the parties at Gatsby's stop altogether and that Gatsby's "career as Trimalchio was over" (113). Trimalchio is a character from a Roman novel, The Satyricon, about a man who works hard and perseveres, and so attains wealth and power. He throws opulent dinner parties where servants bring dish after dish of rich and exotic foods. Nick thus compares Gatsby to a hard worker and party-thrower, as these things seem to comprise the majority of his identity, until Daisy returns to his life.
(**All page numbers are taken from the Scribner's, New York, edition of the text.)
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