Nick Carraway: The Great Gatsby
Nick Carraway, the tale’s storyteller, has an astonishing place in The Great Gatsby. Primarily, he is both a storyteller and an accomplice in the story. A fraction of Fitzgerald’s ability in The Great Gatsby excels through the manner he ingeniously makes Nick a central attraction, while concurrently permitting him to stay pleasingly in the background. Additionally, Nick has the discrete reputation of being the lone character that varies considerably from the tale’s commencement to its end. Nick, even though, he originally appears not being involved in the action, slowly shifts to the front position, turning into being a significant medium for the tale’s messages.
On one perspective, Nick is considered to be Fitzgerald’s Everyman; however, in many approaches he is exceedingly more. He emerges from a reasonably unexceptional background. He emerges from the higher Midwest (Minnesota and Wisconsin) and has allegedly been born on orthodox Midwestern principles (hard work, urgency, impartiality). Nonetheless, Nick is a little more multifaceted than that. By the moment in which the story occurs the Carraways have only resided in this nation for not a period exceeding seventy years, in the immense extent of things. Additionally, the relatives’ patriarch did not display the excellent Midwestern significances that Nick considers his personality. In the event that the civil conflict started, Nick’s family member “sent a replacement” to battle for him, whilst he commenced on the family business. This minute detail reveals a few aspects: It positions the Carraways in a meticulous cluster (since only the well-off could afford to replace an alternate person to fight) and proposes that the Carraways who existed in an earlier period were additionally attached to trade than justice. Nick’s relative actually does not engross any doubts about transferring an inferior man off to be murdered in his stead. In this perspective, it is exciting that Carraway would emerge being a sensible and considerate man, being enough of an idealist to prioritize purposes, and yet sensible enough to recognize when to discard his dreams.
His purposes and goals are also other factors that added up to his personality as an Everyman. He goes east following the termination of the First World War, in quest of escaping the repetitiveness he sees to pervade the Midwest as well as to making his kismet. He is a cultured gentleman who fancies more from life that the peaceful Midwest could not bring (even though it is fascinating that prior to residing in the city any span of time he withdraws to his motherland). What helps Carraway to become so odd, though, is the manner that he desires to achieve his visions without being absorbed — or be swayed for instance, but not permitting himself to being despaired by the glitz that shapes their standard of living. When he recognizes what his societal superiors are truly like (shallow, void, hardhearted, and expedient), he is shocked. Moreover, rather than carrying on to provide for them, he avoids these situations. Effectively, inspired by his ethics, Carraway commits societal suicide by vehemently avoiding individuals such as the Buchannans, as well as, Jordan Baker. Besides his Everyman feature, Nick’s ethical sense assists to set him distant from other additional characters. From the initial instance, he interrelates with other people like Daisy and Tom in the introduction chapter) he undoubtedly is not similar to them. He is positioned as a more realistic and sensible as opposed to the other characters. This spirit is yet again portrayed in the subsequent and the following chapter. This is because he does not fairly identify how to react to being introduced into the secret entity of Myrtle.
References
Fitzgerald, F. S., & Nowlin, M. E. (2007). The great Gatsby. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press.
