The Great Gatsby Environment Analysis

The characteristics of an individual are generally influenced by the nature of the environment in which they coincide with. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald analyzes the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his extravagant New York City living through the perspective of the allegedly impartial narrator, Nick Carraway. The intriguing lives of the affluent lures Nick into associating himself with those of an obscurely lavish reality, changing his perception of the world around him. Through a series of life altering events in the deceiving city of New York, Fitzgerald demonstrates a change in the characterization of Nick from an initially indecisive character to a rather partially involved character due to his experiences of the flawed

As Gatsby pulls into Nick’s driveway, diving his masterpiece of a car, he sounds his three-noted horn to catch the attention of Nick. Nick proceeds to exit his house and acknowledges that “He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with the resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American - that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand” (Fitzgerald 64). Due to Gatsby’s mysterious discreteness and Nick’s judgmental capabilities, Nick begins to distinguish meaningless flaws in Gatsby’s character and objectifies them into something much larger. Similarly to Nick’s speculation of New York City, he believes there is another untold, darkened secret of Gatsby. This changes the perspective of Nick and the novel into prioritizing whether or not the mystery behind Gatsby’s character is theory or reality.The current perspective of the novel initially portrays Gatsby as a conflicting character to Nick, which results in Nick being judgemental towards even the slightest disparity of Gatsby’s actions. Now that Nick is able to identify variation within Gatsby’s character, he is open to recognize the deviating characteristics of