Nick's Transformation In The Great Gatsby

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Nick is a developing character, he is gifted with the ability to withhold crucial information in order to let us; the readers develop our own, perhaps biased, view of the character of “Gatsby”. Throughout the novel, Nick gains an insight into stereotypical rich human nature; a life of luxury and carelessness, however he also concludes that some of the “new money” differ vastly from the old money, and have the capability to avert a life of languidness and discord. In the first pages of the novel Nick describes himself and his values, he tells us that Gatsby “represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn” and, yet, “…there was something gorgeous about him” Although Nick greatly disapproves of Gatsby’s method of obtaining his fortune, …show more content…

Nick sees the purity in Gatsby’s dream and the monotonous life of the privileged crowd like Tom, Daisy, and Jordan who all belong to the "rotten crowd" because of their selfish, materialistic, and cruel …show more content…

However with the absence of this smile Nick almost comes back to reality as if Gatsby’s smile almost had a hypnotising quality to it. This is shown through the “strong impression” of Gatsby that “he was picking his words with care”. Nick sees the duality of Gatsby; he sees the dreamer and he sees the conformer, (to superficially constructed standards) as demonstrated through his “formality of speech” that “just missed being absurd”. Nick appears to prefer the “dreamer” boyish side of Gatsby, he likes his sense of hope and magic even amidst of the superficial socialites of the fashionable East Egg. Nick loathes the “old money”, such as Tom Buchanan, as these people are generally consumed by self-absorption and lack the ability to feel any real emotion, as shown by Daisy crying over the “beautiful shirts”. Nick shouts out, "You´re worth the whole damn bunch put together." As a method of consolation, and also to remind Gatsby that he is not like the “careless people” of West

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