Towards the end of chapter three in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway explains his schedule, sharing that he spends most of his time at work although after he studies and wonders the streets at night… Fitzgerald highlights Nick’s desire to interact with people and lightly describes the barrier, which keeps Nick away from the social interaction he desires. In this section, Fitzgerald portrays Nick as having friends at work, although the lack of specific details and void of effort to sustain the relationships demonstrates Nick’s want for companionship, but inability to socially connect with people. Nick begins by bragging that at work he “[knows] clerks and young bond-salesmen by their first names” and has “lunch with them”(61). Nick’s non-description of any of his work friends implies he doesn’t know them well or doesn’t really care about them, but his excitement at having people he can be with implies that Nick doesn’t have many friend opportunities and only cares that he’s doing something with someone. Nick continues, casually mentioning a relationship he was in with a girl who “work[s] in the accounting department”, which he let …show more content…
Nick admits that his dinner alone at the Yale Club is, “for some reason [,]…the gloomiest event of [his] day” (62). Nick isn’t oblivious to his sadness, but it seems evident that he doesn’t understand how it effects his actions, for example, after he eats dinner he studies in the library where “there generally a few rioters” and it is quiet, although if Nick really didn’t want to be disturbed he would go home 62). After Nick leaves “if the night [is] mellow” he restlessly “strolls around” the avenues: although among many he still “[feels] a haunting loneliness” (62)…Nick feels the same constraint as “clerks” who, unlike him, are at work unable to seize the opportunity to do