The Role Of The West In The Great Gatsby

“This has been a story of the West, after all” (Fitzgerald 18__). Even though The Great Gatsby is entirely set on the East coast, the West plays a large role in influencing the characters’ thoughts and actions. The novel is about the contrast of the East and West, and the tragedies that occur when the two mix. It is at the end of the novel, when Nick says that the entire story was about the West, that he realizes that the characters could only survive and live successfully and peacefully in their original home, as opposed to the corrupting environment of the East. In this moment, Nick understands for the first time that though his story is set on the East Coast, the western background of his companions is the cause for each and every misfortune

that occurs in The Great Gatsby.
This quote comes in chapter 9 when Nick is reflecting on the previous events of The Great Gatsby.

By saying what he does, Nick infers that everything that occurred had been influenced by each person’s Midwestern upbringings and how it affected them once they came East. Nick is commenting on the cultural divide between the East and West, and the toxicity of combining the two. Each character came East to flee something bad from their pasts, ranging from rumors of homosexuality, to life without a loved one, and to the bad publicity from an affair. However, the culture shock of the East is what caused each downfall in the novel. Nick implies that New York is corrupting and that the characters would have been much better off staying put in the

Midwest.
Location is not the only factor that divides the East and the West, as the differing morals of the two regions create further distinction. New York is defined by opportunism, fast living, desire, greed, and crumbling moral ideals. Gatsby exemplifies this stereotype by dealing in illegal side businesses to amass enough wealth to attempt to reestablish his love with Daisy, and Tom shows his immorality by having a mistress. Nick calls the East “a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lusterless moon,” (Fitzgerald 185). The West, however, is characterized by its traditional, sturdy values. The Midwest is a more wholesome place, as compared to the East. It is less corrupt and harsh, as exemplified by Nick’s quote on page 176, “That's my Middle West – not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.” ____________ __________________________________________________________________________.
Because of the stark differences inherent in the two cultures, the characters were unable to adjust to the Eastern way of life, leading to a string of tragic events in the novel.

On page (PAGE NUMBER), Nick says “Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life (PAGE NUMBER).” Because each character is raised in the West, they are unaccustomed to the culture of New York when they arrive, and it is because of their lack of knowledge of Eastern morals that they became corrupted and lead horrific lives. In the end, everyone escaped the East in some way because it was so morally ravaging. Tom and Daisy accomplish this by running away, while Nick does so by going back home to Minnesota, and Gatsby escapes through death. In summation, every person involved with the story of Gatsby is unable to function as normal in Eastern society, due to their Western upbringings, and it causes a great deal of conflict and despair throughout the course of the

plot.
Each character ventures out East for different reasons, but they all leave it for the same one. New York is a morally corrupting place. It is what destroys Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy’s Western ideals, and it is what causes Nick to flee from the East back home to the Midwest. The atmosphere of selfishness and luxury allows nick to realize that Long Island in not the city of opportunity and the American dream that he thought it was, but rather a place of lies and deceit. So when Nick says the famous quote, “This has been a story of the West, after all” (Fitzgerald 18__), he is talking about the influence of the west on someone’s personality, and how the culture shock of somewhere so morally ravaging as Long Island can be devastating to a person.