Great Gatsby :: essays papers

Great Gatsby 3Write an essay about the spirit and bring of Nick Carraway.Despite the title, Nick Carraway is the world-class character we meet, andappropriately his role in The Great Gatsby is crucial without him thestory would lack balance and insight. The first chapter is in the first placededicated in establishing his personality and position in the book, thenmoving on to Tom and Daisy. Nick is our guide, path finderin The Great Gatsby he relates the story as he has seen it and from whatothers control told him. He strives at all times to be objective, hiscomments are balanced, as he says just in the first page of thebook Im inclined to reserve all judgements.His objectivity is reinforced throughout to us by his scorn ofGatsby he exhaustively disapproves of him herepresented everything for which I have unaffected scorn. Yetthere is something some heightened sensitivity to thepromises of life, an extraordinary gift for hopethat is mesmeric to Nick, and requires him to make s everal attempts atdescribing it. He registers contempt for more of what Gatsby standsfor the falseness, the criminality, but still he likes him. Hisability to laugh at Gatsby and his false airs What was that? . . .The trope of Oxford? shows hes neither charmed nor whollydisgusted by Gatsby. Nick sees him as the best of a rottencrowd, his approval is unendingly relative compared to Tom andDaisy his dream like innocence is attractive, though twisted into animpossible goal and only nearly achieved by criminality. But compared toToms ruthless attitude to Myrtle and Wilson, Daisyscareless abandonment of Gatsby and ultimately their complete inability tosee their wrong if you think I didnt have my shareof suffering . . . I sat down and cried like a baby putGatsby in a much fairer light. As Nick says, Gatsby was expenditure thewhole damn bunch put together.His amusingly contemptuous remarks show his sense of humour, and althoughhe is straight-laced, we are not bored by him. We are told of hisage thirty, which makes us take his opinions seriously, as he isnot some immature unworldly man.Nick is introduced directly, but Gatsby remains a distant character for agood while. The establishment of Nicks reflective, tolerantpersonality is essential, as are his limitations, so we dont justdismiss him as Fitzgeralds mouthpiece. The fact that hedisapproves of Gatsby so early on, helps us to go along with hisjudgements when he tells us of Gatsby and unfolds the story.Our first mysterious glimpse of Gatsby prepares us for much of what is to