The Great Gatsby Essay Example for Free

The Great Gatsby Essay In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the character of Nick Carraway as his mouthpiece, his own little spy in the lives of the characters in the novel to relate back the events happening. Because of this, there are a number of things which we need to bear in mind about his narration such as to what degree it could be biased and how the first person descriptive effects the way that we portray Nick. First being introduced into the novel, Fitzgerald has Nick Carraway talk about some advice that his father had given him when he was younger, therefore enlightening us to the way that he was brought up and how it has affected the way he is now. He still remembers the words: â€Å"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. † This reveals to us that Nick is not of lower class and is very well educated, which is further reinforced by the fact that he went to Yale, one of the most highly esteemed colleges in the country. Nick explains how doesn’t judge a person, which has therefore â€Å"opened up† people to him as they shared their troubles with him. However, we also get the impression that he is uninterested in the petty problems of people’s lives, as the comparison of â€Å"curious natures† to â€Å"veteran bores† is used, suggesting that while some of the people who confided in him intrigued him, others may have just left him sitting there offering mild condolences, a â€Å"victim† who’s subject to listen to their inconveniences when they were â€Å"unsought†: he didn’t look for people to come and talk to him, they came to him. Whether this proves that he is a trustworthy character is debatable; if he told everyone about the â€Å"secret griefs† that he was privy to then he wouldn’t be trusted and have people coming to speak to him, and yet he frequently deceived the people who sought after him, feigning â€Å"sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity† when they tried to speak, which makes you wonder what else he could have done in the lines of deception, and whether or not it went further than just lying to avoid people. It would seem that he is very good at getting along with people in public and on the surface, whilst analysing them in private, to us, the readers. The reader learns soon on that Nick is from the Middle West, but moved further east to West Egg where he’s living now to learn the bond business. West Egg and East Egg are both enormously wealthy suburbs of New York City, located on Long Island where they face the ocean, but there is a clear differentiation between the two. East Egg is the home of the aristocratic people with inherited fortunes gathered over generations, roots running deep in American society. These people place great value on tradition, family background, manners and social convention, and look at people who weren’t born into their kind of wealth – â€Å"old money† – with contempt. Those who live in West Egg are also very wealthy but they lack the sense of entitlement that those in East Egg have, as they earned their money and weren’t born into it. They aren’t as ‘polished’ or ‘refined’ in their manners, and can therefore never fit in with those from the East Egg; they lack the background of a well established family. Nick himself is â€Å"descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch†, so therefore has a rather esteemed lineage in his own right, and yet he lives a rather modest life in the West Egg in a small house he describes as an â€Å"eyesore† next to the large mansion next door belonging to Gatsby; he isn’t drowning in wealth himself, but he is connected to people like his neighbour, Gatsby, and Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Because of this, he has an insight in to what happens in the lives of these people, and this is what Fitzgerald will have intended: Nick relates what goes on from the inside, acting as the eyes, ears and mouthpiece for Fitzgerald. Although the intention of using Nick as the narrator may have been for him to give a rather objective viewpoint of the story’s events, that wasn’t truly the way that it was portrayed. Yes, he’s an outsider compared to the rest of the characters, having only recently moved to the West Egg himself and therefore not knowing too much about the lifestyles that these people are living, other than the fact that they are rich. However, he has former opinions of the characters he meets in chapter one which may or may not have clouded the way in which he describes them. Daisy Buchanan is his second cousin once removed, and it is clear that he is taken by her: he describes her as â€Å"charming† with a â€Å"low, thrilling voice† that was difficult to forget, which is a rather biased opinion of her; of course, we are still shown some of her carelessness and snobbish ways, but they are mainly through her actions, little things between the lines that could be easily overlooked if one didn’t know what to look for. Tom Buchanan on the other hand is introduced differently; through Nick, Fitzgerald first describes how he is a wealthy, athletic figure, listing his achievements and purchases before describing the man himself: he is portrayed as an arrogant man, having a â€Å"supercilious manner† and â€Å"established dominance†, thinking he’s superior to everyone around him and especially the black race as he describes how thinks it’s up to themselves, â€Å"the dominant race† to make sure that they keep the control and not any other races. He is generally described much more negatively by the narration of Nick, and this influences the way in which we perceive Tom as the automatic ‘bad guy’ in Chapter One. This perception is only accentuated when the reader finds out that he is cheating on Daisy with a woman in New York, and that men at New Haven (the college that he and Nick both attended) â€Å"hated his guts. † It is clear that he is a powerful man as his physique is referred to numerously, like the â€Å"enormous power† of his body and the â€Å"great pack of muscles† he had. He filled his boots until he â€Å"strained at the top lacing†, which could be likened to the saying that someone is too big for their boots – Tom is, both in the literal sense and the way in which he thinks that he is more important and powerful than everyone else. Heck, Fitzgerald even describes how Nick seems to think he radiates the â€Å"I’m stronger and more of a man than you are† vibe! Considering the fact that Fitzgerald has Nick introduce himself as an honest man who is â€Å"inclined to reserve all judgements†, we as readers don’t really get this impression from him in the first chapter. Not only does he already have – possibly subconscious – opinions of the Buchanans, he also has â€Å"unaffected scorn† for his neighbour Jay Gatsby, and all that he represents. However, he also says that there is â€Å"something gorgeous† about him, highlighting the fact that not only is he contradicting his previous statement when he said that he reserves judgements, but he’s contradicting his own opinion of the same man in only the next sentence! Because of all these things combined, it is uncertain to what degree the narration of Nick Carraway is actually reliable, as his own opinions can get in the way and make the narration biased. Overall, I think that Nick is portrayed as a fairly honest man in this first chapter of the novel, The Great Gatsby, but because of a few underlying things that could be picked up on, that may not be the full extent of his character. His opinion of things, even in the first chapter, contradicts itself; this not only puts into question which opinion we should agree with, but also makes us doubt his reliability as a narrator, which then in turn makes us wonder to what extent the story is accurate and in how much of it has had the illusion of the lifestyle the characters are living take over the actual reality.