Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, although the title of the story bears the name of Gatsby, we hear the story from Nick Carraway, making him the most important character in the story, through his growth, his beliefs and opinions, and his relationships. F. Scott Fitzgerald puts Nick Carraway in the center of the story, rather than Gatsby, through Nick’s narration of the story. Nick grows to understand the people around him more, and grows in his narration. Because he is constantly around people, he comes to understand them more and he comes to ‘mature’ over the course of the story. When we first are introduced to Nick, we see some advice that he got from his father a long time ago. He tells us, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing …show more content…
The beliefs presented through the story belong to Nick, and the observations are from his eyes and what he perceives. This unique viewpoint in the eyes of Nick gives the reader Nick’s observations, such an observation being that, “His house had never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes. We pushed aside curtains that were like pavilions, and felt over innumerable feet of dark wall for electric light switches—once I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano.” Here, we see Nick’s description of Gatsby’s own house. His description of the home as ‘enormous,’ ‘dark,’ and ‘ghostly’ show the reader unique imagery, and also show an opinion from Nick about his surroundings. If this was an observation from another character, it would most likely be much different, but although the house may not belong to Nick, we are reminded of his importance to the story because of his description. This is also true when Nick talks to Jordan,