Outsiders In The Great Gatsby And Slaughterhouse-Five

An outsider can see the values of society because their withdrawn nature gives them the time to observe those around them and make thoughtful analyzations of society. Despite the ability for outsiders to see the gross reality of society, the reality of being withdrawn is also isolating. The romanticised idea of an outsider, present in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Scarlet Letter, show the protagonists as free thinkers who want to escape from the confines of society. The reality is shown by Nick in The Great Gatsby and Billy in Slaughterhouse-Five where the main characters suffer from loneliness and disconnection from other people. Both characters are effectively stuck in time; trying to make sense of their lives they forget to

really live. As an outsider Nick is able to understand the value society, better than someone who participates, because he watches people. His ability to withhold his emotion and judgement from those around him and use the information to better understand human nature is what makes him such a reliable narrator and character. Because Billy is stuck in his mind and can not participate he shows the reality of how isolated outsiders feel.
The reality of Nick’s life is a lot uglier than the romanticized story we wish existed. What makes Nick so good at understanding people is that he is not participating the way they are, instead he gets to see the reality of other people's lives. Throughout The Great Gatsby Nick follows along without initiating his own adventures, all the while he has independent opinions that are not influenced by other people. Surrounded by the city and millions of people Nick still “felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others [too]”(p.56). His disinterest in being fully immersed in society allows Nick to see reality clearly without his judgement being clouded by jealousy or lust. During the summer nights when Nick would wonder around New York City and watch the happy people he thought, “imagining that I, too, was hurrying toward gayety and sharing their intimate excitement, I wished them well”(p.57). It is a very powerful and difficult thing for people to do, wishing others happiness when you are not, but Nick’s ability to do this comes from his lack of interest in participating. For outsiders, who have accepted their status, the happiness of other becomes more important. Nick does not crave attention or acknowledgement for his interesting personality, instead he is content with himself and does not strive to be anyone else.
Billy Pilgrim, similarly to Nick, is content with himself and does not manipulate other people. Instead Billy lives a mundane life where everything that goes on in his life happens to him rather than being initiated by him. Billy spends much of his life trying to escape into his mind and not be a bother to other people. During World War Two Billy wanted to be left alone by a young soldier who was dragging him along back to the Allies side, “Billy Pilgrim, there in the creekbed, thought he, Billy Pilgrim, was turning to steam painlessly. If everybody would leave him alone for just a little while, he thought, he wouldn’t cause anybody any more trouble. He would turn to steam and float up among the treetops” (p.61) Billy's intentions in life is not to leave a big impact or have people care about him -- he cares about what is going on in his own mind as he tries to make sense on the seemingly meaningless events that go on around him. What makes Billy and Nick difference is that they are observers which gives them a better ability to understand what is going on around them without the living with the intention to leave a mark on the world.
Billy and Nick are better at seeing the values of society and how immoral they are. People in Nick Carraway’s life are so consumed with the unrealistic ways they are supposed to act that they live secret lives filled with deceit and infidelity. The other characters would be unable to judge fairly how people act because they are too involved. Because Nick is not involved or emotionally invested with most other characters he can see how truly reckless they are. Nick’s conservative, non impulsive behavior is what separated him from the rest and allowed him to see how childish affluent people act and that he did not want to be apart of it. When running into Tom Buchanan, after he and Daisy had left Long Island, Nick understood that “they are careless people, Tom and Daisy --They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money to their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” (p.179) Nick, as an outsider can see how selfish people are not worth fretting over or trying to change them. Nick shook hands with him and thought, “it seemed silly not [to shake hands], for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child” (179). This kind of enlightenment that Nick has reached is because knows by watching people and being only lightly involved in their lives that some people are not worth agonizing over.
Nick sees how other characters do not have real friendships and how they are not truthful to each other. Nick has a honest relationship with Jordan where there are few expectations and little lying to one another. Nick is honest with himself about how he feels about Jordan, “She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage.... ” (p.58) Nick has an unusual ability to judge people in a fair way, just as he has reserved all judgement he reveals very little about himself. “I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.” (p.1) Nick explains here why he is able to understand other people better; he can see that by reserving judgement has made him aware if the “curious natures” of other people. This has also made him an outsider because by watching others he can see how alien and uncivilized they all act. Nick believes, “the abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.” (p.1) By this Nick means that the quality of a person is attractive to abnormal people. The other characters in The Great Gatsby are often choosing low quality and deceitful people to have relationships with. He was accused of being a politician because he knew so much about other people from observing them while revealing so little about himself. From being aware of himself and others, Nick declares that, “a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.” (p.2) Virtue is most important to Nick and when he sees that his friends have none he is disgusted with them.
Billy’s disgust for war separates him from other people. He was thrown into war with little preparation or enthusiasm. As a man who does very little action himself and instead was dragged along on his adventures, Billy sees war in a different way. He sees the crude behavior of the soldiers and the “boiled bodies in Dresden,” (p.148) in a different way than all the others. The war sent Billy into a world of his own forcing him to be an outsider. Billy’s coping method, for all the death he saw, is to come up with the idea that there is no free will; everything has happened, will happen and will always happen. He is disgusted by how civilians were killed in the bombing of Dresden and how young all of the soldiers are. Billy tries not to notice the senseless amount of death he sees and takes a more passive approach to dealing with it by accepting that it was going to happen and there is nothing that can be done about it. Vonnegut showed this passiveness by saying “so it goes” everytime after someone dies. Billy’s passive approach to death is similar to his passiveness towards life. He does not care to participate much and does not feel the need to be apart of something bigger than himself. The war hero idea does not appeal to Billy because to him it is trivial and unreal. Death causes Billy to feel divided from the rest of the soldiers because they let death bother them, but he is incapable of dealing with that much emotion.
Billy was able to see how immature soldiers are and how the glorified idea of war is not realistic.

Weary, a young fighter Billy traveled with across Nazi lines, was clueless about how he was being perceived. Weary spent so much time living in the real world that he did not know anything about himself, “he was so hot and bundled up, in fact, that he had no sense of danger. His vision of the outside world was limited to what he could see through a narrow slit between the rim of his helmet and his scarf from home…” (p.52) Weary’s view of the world was just a “narrow slit” through which he could not see the reality of his situation, he saw only what he wanted to. Billy is more aware than Weary because his observations are about the way people

act.
Nick has very high expectations for himself and values truth highest. Throughout the book Nick says very little about himself but he does say, “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” (p.59) While never being truly straightforward with anyone else, Nick is very honest with himself about his uncertainty in his relationships and his observations of other people. He is very aware of how his friends act and their reasons behind their actions. Nick’s ability to discern people’s qualities and know what is true and what is not. He does not idealize or blindly hate in a way most mortals are not capable.
Nick, all throughout the book, tries to get away from uncomfortable situations and needs to be invited to them.

He follows other people’s lead, but not what they think. The invitation to his first Gatsby party was a large and impressive part of his day and his need for invitations continues for the rest of the book. His lack of self-assuredness kept him from being as spontaneous and involved as the other characters. But more than his need to be invited Nick also has a need to get away. When partying with Tom and his mistress he wanted to leave, “I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the Park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back..” (p35) As with most outsiders Nick was surprised about the way he felt being included. “[He] was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” (p.35) Despite the necessity of being invited and continuously brought back in Nick is capable of having fun while still sporting his outsider

characteristics.
Similarly to Nick, Billy was always trying to escape. Throughout the war all he wanted was to be left alone by Weary, even if that meant traveling across Nazi territory by himself. “He wished everyone would leave him alone. ‘You guys go on without me’ He said again and again.” (p.43) Billy had no need for other people bothering him or being near him, all he wanted was to be left alone. When tossed into a pool by his father as a boy he sunk right to the bottom, “He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him. Billy resented that.” (p.55) Outsiders like Billy and Nick do not need to be around other people they can be just as satisfied listening to music at the bottom of a pool or going on a walk alone.
Nick and Billy are two unusual characters who, because they are outsiders, observe the people around them and have a better understanding of what is going on. Society conditioned them to separate from everyone else. Their abilities to see the ugliness of reality, this sets them apart allowing them to have a unique perspective on what is going on around them. Through these characters it is seen how everyone is subject to disconnect no matter their place in society.