...novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway, the narrator, makes himself out to be an incredibly understanding and patient man. He asserts to shun judgement of people before genuinely becoming acquainted with them, essentially priding himself on what he considers to be a strong morality. While somewhat of a conceited statement, it, for the most part, accurately describes Nick’s appraisal of Jay Gatsby. From their initial encounter, Nick demonstrated disharmonious feelings towards Gatsby; at times Nick would laud him, and others Nick spoke considerably poorly of him. These conflicting opinions of Gatsby stem from a contention with Nick’s moral values. Many of Gatsby’s actions struck Nick as superfluous and untrustworthy....
Words: 1047 - Pages: 5
...Essay on “The Great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald The book ”The Great Gatsby” written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, processes lots of different themes. One of those themes is the so-called “American dream”, a dream of success. One of the main characters, Jay Gatsby, you could say is living this dream. His life is extravagant and filled with all the material goods money can buy, Yes Jay Gatsby has it all, or does he? All of this is seen from our narrator’s point of view Nick Carraway, who also along with Gatsby is one of the main characters. In my essay on ”The Great Gatsby” I have chosen to keep my focus on chapter 3, the chapter takes place at Nick Carraway’s first party at Jay Gatsby’s Place. As mentioned earlier the narrator of the book is Nick Carraway, with a 1st person limited point of view, so we hear every thought Nick Carraway has “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house …”. The fact that we hear every thought Carraway has helps us relate and understand the way he acts. Negatively 1st person narrative is unreliable to the reader, because we only se the situation from one point of view. It’s also a disadvantage because the main character isn’t aware of all events. And therefore as a reader we are very eager to hear what’s going on and what the other characters are thinking. In the book there is also use of direct Talk between the Reader and the narrator “Reading over what I have written so far, I see that I have …”. Because of this we get...
Words: 817 - Pages: 4
...The Great Gatsby begins with a general description of the characters life before they met Jay Gatsby- where before he may have been living an unfulfilled life, Gatsby changed that. This led to his accusations of 'being a politician' which suggests that after meeting Gatsby his mannerisms changed. While the beginning primarily focuses on the introduction of the main character and his privilege, it soon goes into his life before, and leading up to the meeting of the infamous Jay Gatsby (also, in the lead up to meeting the character, Carraway focuses on details of Gatsby's mansion - 'with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool' and the parties - 'men and girls came and went like moths'.) However, the narrator tends to digress off the main subjects - the vivacious parties and social gatherings that the story focuses on- to fill in the gaps, and, again assure the reader that he isn't spending his life in luxury and had been working alongside the extravagant parties he'd attended. The form of The Great Gatsby is a narrative as Nick Carraway is giving a direct storytelling to- indeed, what he deemed most important- the goings on in his life. There are many aspects of love in The Great...
Words: 468 - Pages: 2
...The Great Gatsby: Summary: Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg, Long Island, a wealthy area populated by the new rich, people who made their fortunes due to the economic upswing of the Roaring Twenties. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a huge mansion and throws extravagant parties on the weekends. Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island and the home of the upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening to have dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a former classmate of Nick during his time at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a random, vulgar party in the apartment that Tom bought because of his affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose. As the summer progresses, Nick eventually gets an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. He encounters...
Words: 4924 - Pages: 20
...The Great Gatsby ‘’The Great Gatsby’’ is a Charles Scribner's Son novel based on tragedy . The novel was published in 1925 in NYC . Nick Carraway the novel narrator , explain with details how he was living in this time , including his point of view of the things that happen on his environment . is As a ‘’Modernism’’ novel great Gatsby is a non poetic story based on the search of truth and identity . The great Gatsby is an amazing novel that tells the life of Nick Carraway who travel to New York. Nick wants to be a professional writer . He believed that these time of his life would be success full . On his journal nick tells that the begging he was very happy to be in New York. He was gaining good money, attracting women and the fame was very good. "The Great Gatsby provides a critical social history of America during the Roaring Twenties within its narrative. That era, known for unprecedented economic prosperity, the evolution of jazz music, flapperculture, and bootlegging and other criminal activity, is plausibly depicted in Fitzgerald's novel." (Bruccoli, Matthew Joseph). He has a cousin called Daisy who already were living in New York. She was married to a rich man whose name was Tom Buchanan a popular polo player . Nick doesn't know how his cousin was living. He asked her and she told him that every thing is good.The first thing he realized was that his Cousin Daisy was living a nightmare being married with Tom, he was unfaithful and abusive but she kept...
Words: 1362 - Pages: 6
...The Great Gatsby Summary: The Great Gatsby is a story told by Nick Carraway, who once was the neighbor of the well-known and wealthy man, Jay Gatsby. The movie follows the mysterious Mr. Gatsby, which order only request one thing: to be reunited with his old flame, Daisy Buchanan. Mr. Gatsby uses Nick to become closer to Nick’s cousin Daisy, and to develop a new relationship with her, but Daisy already has a husband, Tom. Meantime, Myrtle Wilson is running over by a car drove by Daisy. Tom has suspects about the secret meetings between Gatsby and Daisy and talks to Myrtle Wilson’s husband, which shoots Gatsby as revenge, as he thinks, Mr. Gatsby was the driver of the car which hit his wife. The American Dream: The movie “The Great Gatsby” is about the American Dream and its influence at the people back in the 1920’s. The purpose about the American Dream is based on that everyone may participate equally no matter of the racy, history or society. American Dream’s plays a big role in the movie The Great Gatsby. Ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for success, and the success, which comes from one’s own efforts. Mr. Gatsby is a living example, when he has saved his money to become even richer than his past generations. In that way, Mr. Gatsby deals with the human aspiration, to start a new life without thinking back at his past. “I wish we could just run away”, he is saying to Daisy. Jay Gatsby is constantly holding big parties at his place...
Words: 510 - Pages: 3
...of Society in the Opening Chapters of The Great Gatsby? The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel penned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was an American novelist and short story writer. The tale of The Great Gatsby is set in a modified version of the Long Island and New York City area of the USA, with correlations to The Hamptons. Throughout the opening chapters of the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a vast amount of characters, motifs and themes to show the importance of society. These can vary massively but all appear to imply how corrupt society was in the 1920s. He also shows how the innate social standing of people defines and limits them for the rest of their lives. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in the cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure seen within nearly all of the characters. Capital is one of the main focuses of the novel, and it becomes apparent that throughout the tale, it defines not only their social standing, but the level of respect which they receive along with how they are interpreted by others in the novel. Fitzgerald begins the novel with an introduction from the narrator and one of the main protagonists, Nick Carraway. Carraway fought in the First World War, which we later find out he fought alongside Gatsby, giving them some form of common ground to base a ‘friendship’ upon. The novel initially begins with a poignant message from the father of Carraway; “When you ever feel like criticising anyone...
Words: 2629 - Pages: 11
...The Great Gatsby is Not The novel has no plot to mention. ... The book is highly sensational, loud, blatant, ugly, pointless. There seems to be no reason for its existence Harvey Eagleton (Dallas Morning News, May 10, 1925). F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an absurd story, whether considered as romance, melodrama, or plain record of New York high life. The occasional insights into character stand out as very green oases on an arid desert of waste paper. Throughout the first half of the book the author shadows his leading character in mystery, but when in the latter part he unfolds his life story it is difficult to find the brains, the cleverness, and the glamour that one might expect of a main character. The Great Gatsby is a parody of itself. While Fitzgerald tries hard not to make Gatsby and especially Daisy laughable personalities, this is where he ultimately fails. There's not enough ironic distance to his characters. As Gatsby, at least in the eyes of many critics, should represent the idea of the American Dream, the presentation of his character puts the whole concept in question again, without being intended as criticism. This is mainly the fault of another weak character in the novel, Nick Carraway. At first, the only function of Nick in the novel seems to be to act as a reporter, telling us the truth by telling us his shrewd, objective perceptions. Then, as the novel progresses, it turns out that the opposite is the case, and...
Words: 507 - Pages: 3
...The Great Gatsby Oct 26, 2012 “Dishonesty” Dishonesty in a relationship exists when one person withholds or manipulates information about themselves or others and presents the facts as a truth. Being dishonest or bending the truth may seem favorable initially, but when the truth is finally revealed, you will have to spill back on more lies which will eventually push the relationship further apart. The Great Gatsby is a novel that shows the reader slyness and fraud around every corner. All of the main characters are dishonest people who portray their lives as nothing more than living in a self obsessed world while making adolescent decisions about love; all these people care about is living in the now. They lie, cheat, and deceive. This was a time when the economy was booming, spreading prosperous jobs in big town cities. This era saw the large-scale diffusion and use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, electricity, and unprecedented industrial growth. People dreamed big, and expected better. Everyone was breaking traditions and experimenting with advanced and diverse goods. Fitzgerald depicts Nick Carraway as a moral guide throughout a novel infused with lies and deception. Fitzgerald utilizes many themes throughout the book; truth versus lies, illusion versus reality, or compassion versus apathy. Within the novel, virtually all of the main characters are dishonest to others or to themselves, which exposes each character’s true self to the reader. Deception...
Words: 1577 - Pages: 7
...In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway serves dual roles. The first one introduced, Nick Carraway is the novel's most well-developed character. The opening paragraphs of the novel reveal Nick's morals and ideals as a person. Though believing himself to have been given a fair amount of the "fundamental decencies [that are] parcelled out unequally at birth", Nick still is inclined "to reserve all judgements" (6, 5). With that inclination, he is then able to get to know most of the characters quite intimately, thus being able to see all the situations as a whole. An example that exemplifies his habit of reserving judgement is just before he meets Gatsby himself. At the first party of Gatsby's that he attends, he had not yet met the host, when already he hears of several rumors concerning Gatsby's past. Unaffected by rumors such as "[Gatsby has] killed a man once" and being "a German spy during the war", Nick still gets to know Gatsby quite well, helping the plot as well as Gatsby's character development (47, 48). Nick's personality qualities qualify him for being a good narrator. The most honest of all characters in the story, Nick is also honest with himself. For example, although Nick cares for Jordan, he admits to himself that Jordan is dishonest and selfish, thereby not letting emotion cloud his judgement. Nick seems to be The Great Gatsby's only uncorrupted and disillusioned character. Every other character, including Gatsby himself, uses money for every...
Words: 1364 - Pages: 6
...Buying Happiness and Love in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby The American Dream is starting with nothing and through hard work and determination one can achieve millions of dollars and all the happiness one can handle. This may not be true, if that person tries to buy the past to regain the happiness he will never succeed and mostly likely end up very unhappy. A good example of this in fiction is F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald criticizes the American dream in his novel, The Great Gatsby, by showing Jay Gatsby's tragic flaw, his belief that money can buy happiness and his love for Daisy. The first example of Gatsby's belief that money can buy his happiness is when Nick Carraway describes the subdivision in which he lives, West Egg. The subdivision across the water is East Egg. The houses are very luxurious to say the least. On the other hand, there is a distinction between the two. The West Egg house are more recently built and are elaborately decorated, where as the houses in East Egg are still as big but very conservative in architecture. The two neighborhoods represent the division in the upper class at this time in America. During the 1920's, the conservative "old rich" despised the "new rich". A good example of an "old rich" family would be the Rockefellers, where as a "new rich" family would be the Kennedys. The East Egg represented the conservative money of the "old rich". For generations their money passed down giving them the belief that the "new rich"...
Words: 1579 - Pages: 7
...In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald captures many divisions in American society by making many references through geographic landscapes and also shows many issues of the "Roaring Twenties." The book is narrated by Nick Carraway, the neighbor of Jay Gatsby who is trying to reunite himself with Nick's cousin Daisy. Nick and Gatsby are from West Egg, while Daisy is from East Egg. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald emphasizes places and settings and also depicts the different aspects of the 1920’s lifestyle. The main landscape he focuses on his what he calls the “East Egg” and the “West Egg,” two totally different places that represent entirely different cultures. The East Egg consists of already established wealthy class that has been apart of aristocracy for generations. However, the West Egg represents the newly rich, and the futuristic, less-sophisticated people of the region. While reading this book, I found many associations with both the East Egg and the West Egg. People in East Egg come from families that always had money. They're more snobby, greedy, and abusive than people from West Egg, which are generally less-sophisticated, and more innocent type of people, as they haven't been around by the material possessions, money, and greed their whole lives. The Buchanans, for example, are a family of East Egg, which Tom Buchanan was born of a wealthy family, and the greedy Daisy, who married into this money. They have a very large mansion for a home, and are...
Words: 620 - Pages: 3
...Nick Carraway An incredibly convenient character conjured by Fitzgerald to give the audience a first person experience of his take on America in the 1920’s, whilst still maintaining a comparatively neutral standpoint on the events that occurred throughout the novel. Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, can be considered and appreciated by the audience as quite atypical to the status seeking and self-rewarding concept that was prevalent throughout 1920’s America. As though Fitzgerald himself needed readers to know that he antagonised this mentality by making Nick (humble and quite accepting) the main character of the novel. The author also devotes very little to giving the readers a background of Nick, and often deviates from information about him to focus on the plot revolving around Gatsby’s shady past and Daisy’s relationship conflict within herself. This works suitably well for Fitzgerald as it “kills two birds with one stone” in the sense that whilst the readers are being won over by Nick, they are also growing more curious in the growing relationships between the other main characters of the book, opening the door for Fitzgerald to manipulate the character of Nick in any way he deems necessary. A prime example of how Fitzgerald used Nick as a completely neutral observer of events that transpired was how he always tended to stay out of other characters’ affairs as though he had long since taken up the mentality that he either had no right to interfere in people’s...
Words: 902 - Pages: 4
...Symbolism, in a novel, creates great depth and puts meaning behind otherwise insignificant words or phrases. This depth can be seen in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby follows a set of characters that reside in Long Island. The book is narrated by one of the characters, Nick Carraway, who has just moved to West Egg. Opposite to West Egg is East Egg, where his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, reside. His cousin and her husband live luxurious lives and Nick finds himself surrounded by their privileged way of life. In West Egg, Nick lives next to Jay Gatsby, who is in love with Daisy Buchanan and hopes to reconnect. The Great Gatsby contains a considerable amount of symbolism that includes colors, temperature,...
Words: 307 - Pages: 2
...explains the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald flawlessly. The Great Gatsby is a complex story that can be read in various ways to reach a deeper meaning of understanding. The book has an abundance of descriptive colors that expand on and support the story. These colors can be interpreted differently from person to person based on experiences and situations. In the novel, author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses them well to capture the characteristics of the story. However, this begs the question of how a factor as minor as color can affect so many aspects of...
Words: 1409 - Pages: 6
