One of the American classic novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald created a fantasy of American dream back in the 1920s. The characters that live in this fantasy world depicts different types of romance and tragedy. The power of wealth distinguished different social classes. People also tend to look forward to upper class and relies on wealthy families. The relationship between Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker created a subtle chemical reaction throughout the whole story. The narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway was first introduced from the beginning of the story. He grew up in a Middle Western City and his family runs the wholesale hardware business for three generations. He is a well-educated man graduated from New …show more content…
Haven in 1915, later participated in the World War I. (Fitzgerald, 3) He got boring staying in his hometown after the war, so he decided to make his fortune by running a bond business in New York with his father's one-year financial aid. Jordan Baker was played as an important spectator in the story. She is a professional golf player and likes to date around. She has a “thousand years old aunt”, who controls her money. As a friend of Daisy, she knows nearly everything happens around the relationship between Gatsby, Tom, and Myrtle. She belongs to a part of the upper- class people, likes to hang around in the parties. The relationship between Nick and Jordan starts from the first time they meet in Tom’s mansion. Nick was invited to his cousin Daisy’s dinner, he saw Jordan was sitting in “extended full length at her end of the divan,...an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.” (8) From Nick’s perspective, the first impression of Jordan seems so rare and awed that he was impressed by her “sitting posture”. When Jordan nod to greet Nick, “the sort of apology arose to his lips.” (9). Nick mentioned his apology toward Jordan again, from this point, Nick is attracted to Jordan. “I enjoyed looking at her… Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face.” Nick commented. (11) Through his detailed appearance description of Jordan, the reader understands and believes that Nick found interested in Jordan, and she might be the loved one that Nick has been looking for in his life. After they had a little talk at Tom’s house, Nick was invited to Gatsby’s party and sees Jordan again.
They begin to know more from each other and their characteristics. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” (49) Jordan talked to Nick individually, saying that large parties have more freedom and choose which to talk to, while small parties were forced to talk to everyone and aware of what other people is saying. Nick found this sentence paradoxical, he later concluded that she “instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men”, her lies might be unlikely to exposed. (57) He also thinks “she was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness”. (58) She needs to keep everything under her control, so her dishonesty would not too obvious. Nick protested Jordan’s driving skill need to be more “careful” and she is “careless” when she drives. (58) Although Nick dislikes her dishonesty and being a careless person, he stills attracted to Jordan’s unique altitude. At this point, Nick and Jordan began dating one another. Until two years after the death of Gatsby, Jordan and Nick were officially break-up. Jordan was dressed to play golf, she told Nick that she was engaged to another man. (177) Nick was surprised and thought she was kidding. “Nevertheless you did throw me over”, Jordan said “You threw me over on the telephone. I don’t give a damn about you now, but it was a new experience
for me, and I felt a little dizzy for a while.”(177) Nick and Jordan’s relationship and Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship have some similarity. Both Nick and Gatsby are not as wealthy as Tom Buchanan, they are also not the part of the “Old money people”. Jordan and Daisy are both raised in Louisiana, they have known each other since they were children. Nick is drawn to Jordan by her altitudes, and Gatsby’s is attracted to Daisy, because she meets all the ideal requirements what Gatsby desire from his parents. Overall, Nick liked Jordan, and Jordan fell in love with Nick too. But they were not sure of their love for one another. Nick was first amazed and make more money in New York. After he experienced all these tragedies, he changed his view on wealthy people and the West. Work Cited Fitzgerald, Frances Scott. The Great Gatsby. 2004 ed. New York: Scribner, 1925. Print.
Finally, Nick’s inability to involve himself emotional with anyone is also a problem. He is more of a bystander than a participant. He fears of being close to anyone, and mostly just gets along with everything. That is a problem. He needs to find someone to listen to, instead of him always being the listener. This emotional distance, which he has, is not a healthy thing for him and can cause him to end being a loner.
The characterization of Jordan Baker as a bored, shallow woman is introduced through the use of description, word-choice, and sentence structure, and accurately represents the rest of the people Nick meets throughout the novel who fake their lives and use the cover of wealth to distract from their inner turmoil.
The classic novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one that opens reader’s eyes to the clouded hallow hopes and dreams that came with the famous idea of an American Dream. The hopes that one day a person could make their own wealth and be successful quickly became dead to many around this time and it is played out by characters and conflicts within The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway is the very first character we meet in this story. A young man who came to West Egg, Long Island the summer of 1922 for work unknowingly walked into a summer that would haunt him forever. The character of Nick Carraway is one who is characterized as someone who is extremely observant as well as the mediator between many of the characters. He is always involved
Nick Caraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, grew as a person throughout the book. In his earlier years Nick went to Yale to study literature, he also fought in World War 1. When Nick was younger he lived in Minnesota then he moved to New York to learn the business bond. He lives in the West Egg which is a part of Staten Island which is home to the newly rich. In the East Egg live the wealthy, who have had money through generations.
The story of The Great Gatsby is told through the narration of Nick Carraway. It is apparent from the first chapter of the book, that the events Nick writes about had a profound impact on him and caused a tremendous shift in his views of the world. Nick Carraway is as much a symbol as the green light or blue eyes. Nick Carraway is unreliable because Fitzgerald intended him to be, he is heavily biased, extremely dishonest and a hypocrite.
To start off, Nick Carraway is responsible for the death of Gatsby. During the harmonious relationship with Jordan Baker, Nick displays tolerance of Jordan Baker’s dishonest behavior and considers her dishonesty as incurable. Nick expresses his thought to Jordan by saying, “It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply ” (58). However, Nick’s forbearance of woman’s dishonesty develops, and his tolerance of dishonesty reaches an apex. Nick soon covers and hides the origin truth of Myrtle Wilson’s death, and he lets Gatsby assume the responsibility of Myrtle’s death. The next day, Nick sees the abandoned corpse of Jay Gatsby at his pool. After the death of Jay, Nick hides the secret of Myrtle’s death from Tom, but displays his disappointment toward Tom. If Nick had told anyone that Daisy was driving the car, George would not have shot Gatsby. Nick Carraway’s wrong decision that was not to tell anyone Daisy ran over Myrtle has led the Gatsby’s death. Moreover, Carraway’s wide tolerance has not prevented the death, but caused it. He is respo...
The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway. Nick tells the story of the things he experienced when he moved to New York City to work in the bonds business. The reader is told the story, which includes Nick’s perception and opinion in certain events. The reader wants to believe that Nick is a reliable narrator and he seems to be one, in the beginning. Nick describes himself as “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (Fitzgerald, 59). Although, Nick thinks this of himself, there are many things in the story that hint otherwise. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick is not a reliable narrator. This is seen through his negative judgments of others, his friendship with Gatsby, and because he does not know everything about Daisy and Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is about Nick Caraway, a man who moved into New York in West Egg. He soon finds out that his house borders a mansion of a wealthy man, named Jay Gatsby, who is in love with Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchannan. Nick describes his past experiences with Gatsby. He is an unreliable first person narrator, for he is extremely subjective being biased towards Gatsby and he is deceptive, with his lying and past actions. His evaluation of Gatsby is not entirely just, due to his close friendship with Gatsby.
Nick is more of a spectator than an actor in the story. He is just an
Jordan Baker tells Nick the heartbreaking story of Daisy and Gatsby 's young love that was forbidden by her parents due to the difference of their social classes. Daisy was not allowed to be with him because he was not wealthy enough to properly provide nor was being a soldier a suitable career title; however, Gatsby would not let this stop him from having the one girl that he truly loved. Later in the chapter, Jordan explains all of Gatsby 's bold yet vain attempts to win back his loved one. Jordan tells Nick that he "half expected her to wander into one of the parties, some night" (79). He aimed to use his fortune as a way to win back Daisy by throwing the most extravagant of all parties to get her attention. She also tells Nick that Gatsby does not want Jordan to arrange a meeting between both him and Daisy because "he wants her to see his house" (79). Even though his love for Daisy is unbearable, at the end of the day, he focuses more on his wealth to win her over. Gatsby "had waited five years and bought a mansion" (78) across the bay from her and her husband in hope that she would recognize his endeavor and all of the money he had obtained and come back to be with him for that sole purpose. In his mind, if Daisy knows how much he is worth, she will have no reason to reject him a second
The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, was first published in 1925. It is a tale of love, loss, and betrayal set in New York in the mid 1920’s. It follows Nick Carraway, the narrator, who moves to Long Island where he spends time with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and meets his mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Nick can be viewed as the voice of reason in this novel. He is a static character that readers can rely on to tell the truth, as he sees it. But not only the readers rely on him. Daisy, Gatsby, Tom, and Jordan all confide in him and trust that he will do the right thing. Nick Carraway is the backbone of the book and its main characters.
To begin with, after the party from the city returns to Tom’s home, Jordan invites him inside, but he responds, “‘No, thanks…’ I’d be damned if I’s go in; I’d had enough of all of them for one day, and suddenly that included Jordan too” (142). By refusing to enter Tom’s house, he symbolically declines the acceptance of the upper class; something he, Gatsby, and Myrtle all avidly desired and worked towards up to this point. Rather than value those material characteristics that had appealed to him before, he chooses his moral principles instead. His relationship with Jordan perfectly symbolizes his primary choice . Later on, after Gatsby’s death, Nick “found himself on Gatsby’s side, and alone…it grew upon me that I was responsible [for Gatsby’s funeral], because… [Gatsby deserved] that intense personal interest to which every one has some vague right at the end” (164). Once again, Nick favors his personal beliefs over following societal expectations. He stands by the mysterious figure of Gatsby, who possessed “an extraordinary gift for hope”(2) that Nick admired, while everyone else keeps a safe distance and watches, as onlookers in a zoo does to the animals. By admitting his part in the events that took place, primarily Gatsby’s downfall, Nick shows he is not the same careless person as Tom and Daisy who leave their mistakes for others to fix . Whether Nick’s belief that everyone should have a living person stand by h im/her after death is a universal truth or not, he follows his heart rather than the crowd. Finally, before he leaves to the Midwest, Nick “wanted to leave things in order and not just trust that obliging and indifferent sea to sweep my refuse away” (177). Particularly, Nick wanted to end his relationship with Jordan, supporting his original belief that a person should only have one
From the beginning of The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is developed as a reliable narrator. His honesty and sense of duty are established as he remarks on his own objectivity and willingness to withhold judgment. However, as the book progresses and Nick’s relationship with Jay Gatsby grows more intimate, it is revealed that Nick is not as reliable as previously thought when it comes to Gatsby. Nick perceives Gatsby as pure and blameless, although much of Gatsby's persona is false. Because of his friendship and love for Gatsby, his view of the events is fogged and he is unable to look at the situation objectively.
The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway as he moves from the Midwest to New York City, in the fictional town of West Egg along Long Island. The story is primarily focused on the attractive, young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan. Pursuing the American Dream, Nick lived next door to Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom Buchanan. It is then that Nick is drawn into the striking world of the riches' lusts, loves, lies and deceits.
...themselves. Even when confronted with a disproof of his perfectly honest nature, as Jordan does late in the novel, Nick responds with an appeal to his belief in his own honesty-his myth about himself is that sacred. Much like Gatsby's self-image, Nick's belief in his own honesty seems to spring from the Platonic conception of honesty, and, much like Gatsby, he simply ignores or rationalizes away anything that comes into conflict with his belief. Nick Carraway is far from one of the few honest narrators I have ever read, but he is a testament to the powers of self-deception that exist in both fictional and non-fictional human beings. "Everyone suspects himself of one of the cardinal virtues," Nick says, and as Nick himself demonstrates, nearly everyone is wrong.