Nick Carraway's Deception In The Great Gatsby

Recounting heartbreak, betrayal, and deception, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a bleak picture in the 1920’s novel The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, witnesses the many lies others weave in order to achieve their dreams. However, the greatest deception he encounters is the one he lives. Not having a true dream, Nick instead finds purpose by living vicariously through others, and he loses that purpose when they are erased from his life. His constant attempt to find fulfillment through others reveals a bitter truth about him: he will never be fulfilled.
Due to his indecisiveness, Nick’s life is constantly at an impasse. Originally from a “well-to-do” (6) family, his life would have been comfortable, a clear path set before

She goes on to elaborate how she always waits for the longest day of the year, but ends up missing it-- a seemingly pointless topic that alludes to the reality of the lives Daisy and Tom lead, one that Nick mirrors in the novel. Not having to work for anything, their life is composed of worthless decisions and accomplishments that lead to nothing. Having their future laid out for them, their lives are filled with hollow attempts to pass the time. However, in their endeavor to occupy themselves, they become ignorant to the consequences of their actions. They consume themselves with a temporary substitute for a purposeless life, blind to the damage they cause, unwilling to change, waiting for a climax that never arrives. Nick had attempted to escape from this lifestyle but because he was unable to make a complete decision in the beginning, he kept living it through the Buchanans; they were Nick’s window to the past. He witnesses Tom’s affair being “insisted upon wherever he was known” (21) without shame, and Daisy “[turn] out the light” (117) in her relationship with Gatsby, as it it never happened. A quiet bystander, never interfering, he experiences their life of ignorance, one with no repercussions, the one he had. Unwilling to remove himself from them, he instead complies to their wants, their decisions that create a sense of accomplishment. Doing nothing to change and move on from his past, Nick makes his choice to move to the east pointless. It is when the Buchanans leave that he finally realizes that his life was just as void of purpose as theirs. Nick, through all that he did, “never took pleasure from life” (Humam Salah Sameem 217). Unable