Why Is Nick Carraway Inhumanity In The Great Gatsby

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In a nation, two communities can often differ from each other. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses his writing to contrast the morality described by Nick Carraway in the Midwest, to the corruption and inhumanity that is quite starkly present in the East. When Nick Carraway describes the west, his west, he portrays it with a sense of calm and jubilation. When he and the train carriage which he is in pulls into a station in the Midwest, he says the following, “When we pulled out into the winter night… the snow… began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights… a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air”. In this quote, there is a sense of happiness and welcoming, as the snow is described as stretching …show more content…

This shows welcoming, as something reaching out to someone is a rather welcoming feeling. Snow is sometimes characterized as something which makes one happy; therefore, it must be a source of happiness to Nick Carraway and the people he’s travelling with. Later on in this paragraph, Nick Carraway then describes the way the views his west. He states that it is “…His middle-west, not the wheat or the prairies or the lost swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of his youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark, and the shallows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow…” . In this quote, Nick Carraway makes his west sound as a very jolly place to live in and come from, referring to his youth in order to strengthen his argument. Also, Nick Carraway describes this in a sense which makes everything sound orderly and flawless. This is true, as Nick’s …show more content…

Nick Carraway shows this by talking about four men delivering an unnamed woman to a wrong household during one of the nights of his stay in the east. Carraway states, “…Four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels.” This quote defines the meaning of negligence, as they are carrying the drunken woman in such a way, that she almost looks dead. The men could have, at the least, not walked in such a solemn manner, and they could have tucked the out-cold woman’s hand back on the stretcher, instead of leaving it dangling over the side of the stretcher. Nick Carraway then goes on to depict what happened next, and said “Gravely, the men turned in at a house-the wrong house. But no one knew the woman’s name, and no one cared.” This quote further adds to the fact that the four solemn men have no respect or dignity, as they gravely carry the woman, as if she is a corpse, and not a live human being. Furthermore, these men are stated to have not cared about where the woman lived, though they carried her all the way to a household, even though it is the wrong one. This not only shows negligence, but it also shows carelessness on their part. Hence,

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