preview

Nick Carraway Character Analysis

Decent Essays
Open Document
Nick Carraway
In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway, shares the story of his life after living next to a man named Jay Gatsby. Having met many people, Nick began to have many opinions on characters throughout the novel. His opinions and comments he made on people reflected of his own character and traits that he possesses. Throughout The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway shows traits of being honest, having high standards, and being a very observant character.
From the beginning of the novel, Nick has shown traits of being honest. When Tom Buchanan asked Nick to go with him to meet his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, Nick thought to himself, “[t]hough I was curious to see her, I had no desire to meet her…” (Fitzgerald…show more content…
He is an honest man with high standards, and will tell it how it is, saying things such as “I’m under no obligations to you at all” (Fitzgerald 116). When at the dinner party with the Sloanes, they are having a conversation about Daisy and Gatsby, saying things such as “[b]y God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me” (Fitzgerald 103). This conversation shows that Nick does not agree with the fact that Daisy is cheating on Tom with Gatsby, and that it would be too much for him to handle if he were in that situation. Nick Carraway “was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life” (Fitzgerald 35). He participated in things but also observed them, explaining how he was “within and without.” He was enchanted by the way life was in East Egg compared to his old home. Nick tells the reader straight forward what he wants when he says “[w]hen I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform…” (Fitzgerald 2). Nick tells readers what he wanted, and what his expectations of the East would be, tying into his character trait of having high…show more content…
He notices the little details in everything, and says “I could have sworn he was trembling… I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light…” (Fitzgerald 21). Nick noticing that his neighbor was trembling reflects on how significant the green light was and what kind of effect it had on him. The description of the green light had “signaled from the start the absolute barrier to the realization of [Gatsby’s] dream of Daisy and the recoverable past” (Monteiro 165), which Nick picks up on as he gets to know Gatsby and his intentions with Daisy. Nick observes that “Gatsby’s dream…is intended to remake the past” (Monteiro 165), and tells Gatsby that he cannot repeat the past, which Gatsby denies, showing Nick how naïve Gatsby was being. When describing characters, Nick gives so much information about what the character is like, “[h]is tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day” (Fitzgerald 50), and the descriptions are so vivid it gives the reader a visual of what the character could look like. He also always gives the reader a very vivid picture of what the characters are doing, like when he says things such as “[h]is head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful,
Get Access
Related
Get Access