How Is Nick Carraway Successful In The Great Gatsby

He moves to West Egg, a fictional part of Long Island, to learn about the bond business and get a job. In the beginning, Nick calls himself “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (Fitzgerald 3). Before he became so absorbed in everyone's relationships and problems, his life was much more simple. Throughout the book, Nick “reveals a growing determination to perceive events in a fixed way” and “his flights of responsive imagination diminish” (Cartwright 1). He became corrupted by the events going on around him.

The book is set in the 1920s and depicts many of the time period’s tendencies. Throughout the story, Nick describes his experiences in New York’s lavish West Egg and East Egg. These

‘The Great Gatsby’ novel by F. Scott Fitzgeralds is a novel that has symbolic life lessons that have shaped my values and realities of life. This novel is about Nick Carraway, the narrator, that tells the story of Jay Gatsby a millionaire purposing the American Dream at the cost of losing himself. A key quote in the novel demonstrated the reality of wealth doesn’t define a person. But consumes them was illustrated when Carraway first saw Gatsby. “I could have sworn he was

Nick Carraway is the only character worth knowing in The Great Gatsby. He is living in East Egg with the rich and powerful people. He is on the guest lists to all of their parties and yet he is the person most worthy of attending such parties because he is well bread and his family is certainly not poor. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” (Ch1, P1). These words were taught to Nick by his father showing the qualities that a man with goals and values would have in a place where goals and values was no existent. His Judgmental eye for character and guts of using them when desired makes him more interesting. He has a greatest fear that he will be

In the novel the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the observations of the character named Nick Carraway reflects upon the life of Jay Gatsby and his surroundings. The 20th century is masked by the glamour and parties. It displays a wondrous era full of wealth. Even though money is the key to this fantasy it is just that… a fantasy. The happiness and reality of life fails to complete on behalf of these rich people. Gatsby seems to have all the riches and fame, although these things cannot fulfil the happiness he desires of Daisy Buchanan.

He had high hopes that he would be successful without help from others. In The Great Gatsby, Nick described his family and his history. How his family came from wealth. Nick came from a family who believed in the American Dream: "The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day." (Fitzgerald 3). In this quote from this novel explains his heritage. According to Dust and Dreams and "the Great Gatsby," Nick was determined to become successful. He didn't believe in failure. "Nick's constant romantic self-projection, his own large sense of glamorous possibilities, his ability, even while noting that tawdriness of an actuality, to understand the glamour that it could still legitimately possess for an outsider- these, of course, are so obvious and so spelled out as to need no commenting on here." By John Fraser. (Fraser 557). This quote states how Nick's determination for success ties into the American Dream. He comes from a family of wealth and a proud family who believed in the American

Scott Fitzgerald reveals Nick’s characterization through the very descriptive narrative voice using rich imagery. The author contrasts the very rich imagery with the fact that Nick is irrelevant to the plot. To create the sense of an environment which is full of emotions and very alive the author uses highly descriptive imagery. Nick is very aware of his surroundings and what’s going on, such as when he describes the atmosphere of a certain time of the day in which “All the lights were going on in West Egg now; the electric trains, men-carrying, were plunging home though the rain from New York. It was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air” (95) The author to emphasize how aware and observant Nick is frequently uses effective imagery. F. Scott Fitzgerald also puts across the excitement in the lives of the wealthy people during the 1920s by the powerful imagery in the narrative

Nick longs to live the life of a millionaire, but for now the most he is able to do is to live next to one who represents his ideal life. Nick’s ideal world is one of money, and to him, Gatsby represents the life in which he thinks he would like to live. Nick demonstrates his admiration for Gatsby and his wish to be able to live that life when he says, “there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life” bespeaking that Nick finds the wealthy to be “gorgeous” and that he represents everything Nick finds to be the ideal life. Nick finds wealth to be something fantastical and it is something he strives to attain for himself in order for him to live his ideal life. Nick believes himself to be in the pursuit of the ideal life in his new home in West Egg, and that to be wealthy is a life of ease in which there is little struggle, the ideal life.

Fitzgerald's dominant theme in The Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American Dream. By analyzing high society during the 1920s through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway, the author reveals that the American Dream has transformed from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power. In support of this message, Fitzgerald highlights the original aspects as well as the new aspects of the American Dream in

The people of West Egg, namely Nick and Gatsby, sought an American Dream that was a “degraded corruption of the idea, a formulation that reduces the objective to money and to social status based on surface riches, not on the more fulfilling aspects of the original conception” (Nagel 2). Originally, the two believed that wealth meant success, but learned their lesson in the end. All Gatsby wanted was Daisy, and yet he could not have her. While he did build himself up, he focused on love rather than his class and ended up losing it all in the end. On the other hand, Nick observed the American Dream through other people and believed that it would never be achieved because everyone lived in the past, taking a pessimistic approach that distorted the idea that one could change their social status.

I’m too poor” (19). Moreover, if Nick is a member of the establish rich, then why is he working for his money and why was he staying in a “weather beaten old cardboard bungalow” (4) that he shared with a complete stranger?

Although some may assume that the protagonist is Jay Gatsby, Nick, in fact, is the protagonist because his character undergoes significant developments regarding his inner conflicts of where his morals stand. He also has the distinct honor of being the only character in the novel that changes considerably from the beginning to the end. His entire opinion of the American Dream is changed. Nick realizes that the moral decay of the east had corrupted the innocence of the American Dream and he moves back west to keep that innocence alive. Because of his involvement in the novel, and his narration, Nick can be seen as the protagonist. Furthermore proving the fact is Nick’s antagonist, society. The East Egg’s moral decay tries to change Nick, and he struggles with

Nick is carried away (pun intended) by the fun, fast-paced lifestyle of the rich and powerful in New York City. He is going along with the lavish lifestyle that his friends are providing him. Nick is building dreams with the perception of what his friends are providing him, a name, a reputation. Nick thought that wealth was a great thing to have until after he had found out about the fatal car crash that killed Myrtle Wilson. Nick realized that night after the car crash that wealth corrupts people. The wealthy hide behind their status and money believing that they are untouchable, this belief makes them think that there are no

Nick is involved in many of Gatsby's affairs and he finally learns that the American Dream does not bring any happiness to Gatsby and destroys him instead. Nick, who leaves his Midwestern life and its values, is a witness to the destruction of the American Dream. Nick comes to the East with great hope and expectations, but then discovers how the hope has been

When Nick meets up with his cousin Daisy and his old classmate Tom in East Egg, he is shown an unfamiliar side of people, a darker side, and he is at a loss and out of his element. Nick is tempted and curious about these things and they lead him away from his midwestern upbringing. The love triangles, the infidelity, gold digging and homicide disgust Nick and he becomes resolved to move back to his midwestern comfort zone almost like in doing so, he will be able to wash himself clean of the experience. Although the character Nick acts as a confidant for those around him, it seems that the burden of their indiscretions is too much for him and he returns to the familiarity and the safety of the morals he was raised on.