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1-Page Summary of Fifty Shades of Grey

Overview

At the beginning of the book, Anastasia Steele is a college student who dreams of working in publishing. She meets Christian Grey, a wealthy businessman from Seattle. Although he’s reclusive and has an icy exterior, she finds him attractive and intriguing. He shows her expensive gifts, but also begins to exhibit controlling behavior that makes Ana uncomfortable. However, Ana can’t deny her attraction to him because he’s handsome and confident. After some time passes, Christian admits that he wants her too; however they’re not compatible at first due to their differences in personalities.

Christian has a secret that he shares with Ana. He does not want to fall in love or have a traditional romantic relationship. Instead, he engages in dominant-submissive relationships where the woman agrees to be submissive and accept physical punishment when she violates any aspect of their contract. Christian also likes to engage in bondage, domination, and sadism (BDSM). When Ana confesses this secret to him, he decides they should start off with “vanilla” sex first before engaging in BDSM.

Christian and Ana have a strong sexual attraction to each other. However, Ana is reluctant to get involved with Christian because she doesn’t want to submit herself completely to him or be punished by him physically. She’s also upset that he won’t show her any emotional intimacy. Over the next few weeks, they continue seeing each other but don’t define their relationship clearly. Christian wants Ana as his submissive, but he also becomes more attached and open-minded about showing her some affectionate gestures like kissing on the mouth instead of just cheek-kissing her when they meet up again. He reveals that he was first introduced into BDSM (Bondage Domination Sadomasochism) at an early age by an older woman who took care of him after his parents died in a car accident. This woman still contacts him occasionally out of concern for how he’s doing in life even though she lives far away from Seattle where he now lives with Anastasia Steele and owns a company called Grey Enterprises Holdings Incorporated (GREY).

Christian has become jealous of this woman since it seems like she might come back into his life soon while Anastasia remains oblivious about all these developments between them both.

Ana is in a dilemma. She wants to be with Christian, but she’s afraid of what he wants from her. At the same time, she feels ashamed and scared about his sexual demands on her. Ana doesn’t like when Christian interferes in her life and treats her like a child. More importantly, it hurts that he won’t open up to her or let himself feel vulnerable around her. Ana just graduated college and is about to start an internship at a publishing house soon too, which makes things harder for them because they’re spending less time together now than before.

Ana tries to understand Christian’s need for dominance by asking him to be as harsh and cruel with her as he can. He beats her with a belt, which humiliates Ana and makes her furious. She decides that she can’t be in a relationship with someone who needs to dominate her like that, so she breaks up with Christian.

Chapters 1-4

The novel opens with Ana, the protagonist and narrator. She is a college student who lives in Vancouver, Washington and attends Washington State University. Her best friend Kate has an interview opportunity to meet Christian Grey, CEO of Grey Enterprise Holdings. Unfortunately for Kate, she’s come down with the flu so Ana agrees to drive up to Seattle and attend her place instead. When Ana arrives at Grey corporate headquarters (a huge building), she feels uneasy because everything is managed very carefully there. This surprises her because when she meets Christian he turns out not be middle-aged but young and extremely handsome.