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Great Gatsby Friendship Quotes

Decent Essays

The Great Gatsby exhibits many themes which resonate with the Jazz Age. One of the important topics is friendship. Fitzgerald's novel instructs readers not to be careless with their friendships. Fitzgerald uses The Great Gatsby to illustrate the true meaning of friendship through his characters’ relationships in the novel about being understanding, caring, and trustworthy.
Friendship is an important topic for the people in the twenties who were not very understanding, in The Great Gatsby. For example, Nick describes Gatsby's smile as, “It was one of those rare smiles with the quality of reassurance in it...” (Fitzgerald 48). The quote clearly conveys how Gatsby’s smile made Nick feel equal, and only friends make you feel equal or finer in the world. People in the Jazz Age were very careless; they always wanted to be superior than others, and forgot about how their friends felt. Nick also describes Gatsby’s smile as, “...believed in you as you would like to believe in …show more content…

People take each other for granted and betray each other. The fear of being judged has caused people not to be their true selves which leads to being fake friends and losing trust. For example, in the novel, Fitzgerald projects Nick’s character as the person whom everyone trusts. Not everyone in the novel knew everything about Gatsby and his past, although Gatsby only told Nick about his past and how he became so wealthy because he trusted Nick. He knew Nick would not let him down because Nick believed in him. In chapter 6, Nick clearly tells Gatsby, “You can’t repeat the past,” (Fitzgerald 110). Nick tells Gatsby that he cannot give up like he did in the past, and not try to win Daisy. Daisy trusts Gatsby, although after she finds out how Gatsby became wealthy, she lost her trust in him and chose Tom instead. Gatsby’s lack of honesty about how he became wealthy led him to lose

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