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Nick Carraway's Life In The Great Gatsby

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In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man named Nick Carraway moves to West Egg, Long Island. After arriving Nick travels over to East Egg where his cousin, Daisy, is located just across the bay. Nick comes to find out his neighbor, Jay Gatsby, is a past lover of Daisy. He also discovers this lover has spent his entire life rebuilding himself to be more acceptable for her. Due to Nick’s strict upbringings he does not criticize others, making him of perfect use to Daisy and Gatsby. As the novel unfolds it is evident the past of the character determines their actions and ultimately affects their whole future.

Nick Carraway’s past perfectly aligns his involvement within this story’s present situations. Nick’s family (his grandfather’s …show more content…

As said by other critics, “Jay Gatsby's determination to establish a new identity for himself sets him apart from the other characters in the text” (Verderame). Gatsby grew up as a poor farmer boy. Born into poverty from the beginning, Gatsby cared little for his family and was determined to leave them behind for a new life.This tragic past encourages Gatsby to entirely start a new life by changing his identity and personality before the reader is even introduced to the character. “So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (98).Critics say, “In doing so, Gatsby has proven to himself that he can successfully change the story of his past” (Scisco). Gatsby meets and falls in love with a girl named Daisy but he is too poor to support her and is tied into the war. After the war, Gatsby goes on to learn to play the role of a gentlemen and becomes very wealthy through engaged in illegal transactions that are only rewarding to his wallet. After altering his past and reshaping his present life Gatsby moves into a mason across from Daisy. Night after night Gatsby founts his money by throwing massive parties for all to join. He throws these parties and invites everyone in hopes that one day Daisy might come

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Nick Carraway is mostly innocent but not completely ignorant when it comes to being a good guy. Being a good person is subjective to whoever sees you in that particular light, because to Gatsby Nick might be a good guy but to Tom, Nick is not a good guy. The ways he is reliable or unreliable again are also in the eyes of the beholder when it comes to that decision. To be labeled a good person or reliable it’s all about how the person describing you sees you in that way. Nick as a person is a reliable and good guy when it comes to dealing with Gatsby.

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Gatsby’s quasi-mythical persona is the novel’s ultimate manifestation of ambitious illusions covering up something that is barren. When he meets Daisy, he falls in love with her. But she is more than a person to him. She is also an idealized dream who comes from an old-money background and whose voice is “full of money” (120). Because Gatsby comes from a poor background and believes that he needs to be in Daisy’s social class for them to be together after her marriage, he decides to create a persona and gain enough money to be powerful enough to capture her.

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Towards the end of chapter three in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway recalls his daily routine, which not only consists of going to work early in the morning and late aimless walks alone down the avenues, but also tells of Nick’s internal clash between wanting friends and the lack of effort he puts into establishing and sustaining a relationship. Fitzgerald describes Nick as a confused man, who’s delusional about how close he is to people he considers friends, which causes him to be restless and sad; often left to wander the streets for something to do Nick defaults to inaction, only observing and imagining what he desires. In this section, Fitzgerald portrays Nick as excited about having friends at work, although the

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People can tragically become lonely and isolated from society for the entirety of their lives. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about a lonely man, the ‘Great’ Gatsby, from the perspective of his neighbor, Nick Carraway. The entire West Egg, where the two men live, constantly buzzes with news about Gatsby’s lavish parties and mysterious history, but until Nick, no one at these gatherings has ever met him. As Nick becomes acquainted with Gatsby, he learns about the intimate relationship between Gatsby and Nick’s cousin, Daisy. Despite Daisy’s husband, Tom, and their child, Pammy, Gatsby, and Daisy begin to reconnect.

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