The Great Gatsby : The Coming Of Age Of Nick Carraway

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, the narrator Nick Carraway's loss of innocence and growing awareness is one of the significant themes. Nick moves to West Egg, Long Island, an affluent suburb of New York City, where millionaires and powerbrokers dominate the landscape, from his simple, idyllic Midwestern home. In his new home, he meets Jay Gatsby, the main character in the novel. Throughout the novel, Nick's involvement in Gatsby's affairs causes him to gradually lose his innocence and he eventually becomes a mature person. By learning about Gatsby's past and getting to know how Gatsby faces the past and the present, Nick finds out about the futility of escaping from the

As a main character we may get a different impression of Nick since we are now analysing his personality and how he interacts with the other characters in the story. We read numerous pronouns in the first chapter, ‘I’, suggesting that he is self-indulgent and pompous. For instance, once at Gatsby’s party, Nick only kisses Jordan Baker because he ‘had no girl’, conveying he only kissed her because there was no one else there. This makes Nick seem selfish and arrogant as he is only thinking of himself. To the reader, we

When Gatsby reveals to about his relationship with Daisy, Nick’s relationship with Gatsby takes a full u-turn as it rapidly advances their association from simple acquaintances to close friends. Nick’s outlook of Gatsby undergoes a similar transformation. When Nick learns of the previous relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, Gatsby’s actions make sense to Nick. The mansion, the extravagant parties, and the green light were all in the efforts for making Daisy notice him. Gatsby lives his life for the past life that he lived. He spends his life seeking the attention of his love, Daisy, and as Nick explains, “He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…” (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby sought out the American dream in order to win over the love of Daisy which creates a different perception of himself to Nick. Nick, now knowing Gatsby’s intentions worries about Gatsby’s possible rejection, and then warns him that, “[he] wouldn’t ask too much of her, you can’t repeat the past.” (Fitzgerald 110) But Gatsby, blinded by love, strives to win Nick’s married cousin’s heart. Nick perceives Gatsby as a man dwelling on the past

Two characters that may have struck the audience to have nothing in common but internally have many similarities. They might have completely different actions in situations, different looks on the way of life, and different goal in the end of their time, but are very similar in certain aspects. These two characters are Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. Jay Gatsby is a middle aged man that came from nothing but has now has worked his way to have “everything.” He came from a poor family but became incredibly rich. He did not achieve his success in the best way, but he made it. He owns a huge mansion on West Egg that he would have never been able to afford in his past. Nick Carraway is the narrator of the story. So, the readers get to actually hear

Without Nick, Gatsby's true colors would not be shown and his behavior would be left not pondered.  His presence from the beginning to the

Nick Carraway is a prime example of how an unbiased and trustworthy narrator can change a book. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is told in first person point of view, through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a 30-year-old man living in West Egg, New York. Carraway tells the story as it is happening and lets the reader know what is to come. Nick seems to be an “invisible character” because he is involved in the story but not in the major conflict. Nick Carraway is the perfect choice of narrator because he is reliable, connected to the main characters, and has an amicable personality.

The real contradiction to Nick is The Great Gatsby himself, Jay. Jay and Nick share a similar small town upbringing but Jay was able to parle his stolen trades into the corrupted version of the American Dream. Most of what Nick knows about Jay is based on his reputation and it’s not until they actually meet and Nick sees the “quality of distortion” in Jay’s New York lifestyle that Nick sees for himself the illusion that Jay created. Nick is attracted to the high life that Gatsby has created in the valley of ashes. Who can blame him with all the lavish parties, cars, mansions, women and other temptations. It’s like Fitzgerald has placed Nick in the Garden of Eden and the two characters; Nick and Jay, represent the good

“The orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” is the unattainable goal of those living in Tom and Daisy’s world—a world where lives are wasted chasing the unreachable (Fitzgerald 180). In his 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that making any progress whatsoever toward this aspiration often requires people to establish facades that enable them to progress socially, but that a crippled facade will backfire and cause detriment to its creator. In the passage where Nick realizes who Gatsby is on page 48, Nick observes two different versions of Gatsby—one that is reassuring and truthful and another who “pick[s] his words with care” (Fitzgerald 48). Nick is at first attracted to Gatsby’s constructed

In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces a complex and round character, Nick Carraway, a very honest, small town man. One specific interaction that stands out, when you begin to see a change when Nick is invited to one of Gatsby’s extravagant parties. Nick was the only person ever invited personally to one of these parties. Nick hears rumors about Gatsby. When they both first meet, Gatsby is very friendly. He invites him to live the high lie with him. It was all an act to get Nick to arrange a date for Gatsby and Daisy. Nick being the honest, well rounded man he is, is in a tough spot. Arranging a meeting secretly between his married cousin, and neighbor is something out of his character. But he agrees to Gatsby’s request

A soft breeze lifts off the Sound and brushes Nick Carraway’s face as he emerges from the shadows into the moonlight. His eyes first gaze across the bay to the house of Tom and Daisy where Nick sees past the walls to people who “...smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together...” (Fitzgerald: 187- 188). Nick’s head then turns to his side where he views Gatsby’ s mansion. His heart swells for the man who was unable to let go of the past, and move toward his future. With the two houses juxtaposed in his mind’s eye, Nick ponders his experiences in the East, and enters the car to take him home with a new

Fitzgerald chose Nick to narrate the text because his perspective creates a multifaceted view of the world Fitzgerald portrays. He is an outsider to the wealthy materialistic world in which he lives. His similarity to Gatsby in that respect helps us gain an appreciation for Gatsby’s character, but although Nick and Gatsby are both outsiders Nick fails to fully understand Gatsby. This appreciation but lack of full understanding gives the reader a very different perspective than a narration from Gatsby’s point of view or that of anyone else in the novel. Nick is caught between the perspective of the man “looking up and wondering” (35) and the man in the party. Gatsby is neither; he holds the party but then scarcely shows up. Far from being an outsider to the world of wealth and materialism, he seems to embody it. Gatsby and Nick both disdain the world of vacuous wealth, but they do so from different perspectives. Gatsby has everything he needs to be part of it and chooses not to; Nick is caught on the edge, unsure whether or not he wants that world, but ultimately he cannot have it. If Nick is an outsider unsure about trying to become an insider, Gatsby is an insider trying, studiously, to make himself an outsider.

In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway functions as both the foil and protagonist, as well as the narrator. A young man from Minnesota, Nick travels to the West Egg in New York to learn about the bond business. He lives in the district of Long Island, next door to Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man known for throwing lavish parties every night. Nick is gradually pulled into the lives of the rich socialites of the East and West Egg. Because of his relationships with Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, and others, along with his nonjudgmental demeanor, Nick is able to undertake the many roles of the foil, protagonist, and the narrator of The Great Gatsby.

As the plot progresses and the character is exposed to the conflict, they have an epiphany that ultimately changes his perspectives and persona.

As the book progresses, Nick Carraway goes from an optimistic, shallow, naive persona to an ill-disposed man wishing for wholesome conservative values. This change of character can be first seen in chapter 1 when Nick is giving a brief foundation of the novel as he informs the audience that his tolerance “has a limit” (Fitzgerald 2). He mentions that after the unfortunate events he moved back midwest wishing “... the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; [Nick] wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart” (Fitzgerald 2). Nick uses very powerful words such as, “riotous”, “privileged”, and “moral” to foreshadow the false projections and lack of integrity that many of the other characters display. When can see Nick’s “young and more vulnerable” behavior slowly dissipate as he becomes further immersed into the urban city life of the 1920s by attending more parties with people he hardly knows and drinking excessively (Fitzgerald 1). As Nick witnesses the negative effects of Tom’s awful treatment of the Wilson’s and Gatsby’s obsessive enchantment with Daisy leading towards his demise; he begins to recognize the flaws of societal

Therefore, Nick is ‘spoon-fed’ by other characters throughout the novel. This portrays Nick’s lack of identity and purpose within the novel as he merely followed ‘everyone’ into the bond business. Fitzgerald uses Nick as a character to question the American Dream and the zeitgeist of modernism in the novel act as motifs to show Nick being seen as febrile since he is heavily influenced through narcissist wealth, where he epitomises Tom and characters like Gatsby; the upcoming rich. Furthermore, Suzanne Del Gizzo’s Statement: “Throughout the book, Nick has difficulty connecting with people, particularly women, highlights his emasculation” this therefore supports the views of Nick being a weak and biased character towards Gatsby therefore it highlights Nick’s ‘emasculation’ this then epitomises Nick as representing the ideal man, but more of a woman, who were dominated by men at this period of time, which shows why is why Nick idolised Gatsby.