Great Gatsby

“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.” “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”(Gatsby 1) This is one of the first impressions we receive of Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The story begins with Carraway telling the story of how he moves to Long Island’s from a wealthy middle class family to work as a bondsman on Wall Street. When he arrives, a mysterious next-door neighbor named Jay Gatsby welcomes him to West Egg. Gatsby is a multi-millionaire who lives a lavish life waiting for his love, Daisy Buchanan, to come back to him. However, Daisy is already married and has a little girl with Tom Buchanan, a famous polo player. The rest of the story revolves around the narrator’s opinions and real life stories he had experienced with these characters during the Roaring Twenties and his opinions on the American Dream. Although Carraway says he was “inclined to reserve all judgments,” he makes negative opinions about the characters from the start excluding his neighbor Gatsby. (Gatsby 1)

Carraway’s friendship with Gatsby greatly affects the way he makes judgments on the characters he encounters. A strong relationship and bond between the two immediately clicked. Gatsby shows him how he lives and invites him to experience his lavish lifestyles, which affects his bias judgments on the others. Meyer Wolfsheim, who fixed the 1919 World Series, asks Carraway if he was the friend that Gatsby referred to join their bootlegging business. Carraway does not judge Gatsby and Wolfsheim for operating a bootlegging bus...

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...ieved that dream. The only person Carraway does not judge is his neighbor, Gatsby. There have been rumors about him flying everywhere about his bootlegging business with Wolfsheim and Carraway does not react and care about this illegal business. He is Gatsby’s wingman and helps get Daisy and Gatsby back together, even if it means Daisy has to have a divorce from her strong, polo player Tom. Once Carraway is involved with the other characters, he puts a shield up and criticizes them right away. When the story comes to a close, Carraway gives Gatsby a funeral and moves on with his life. The narrator seems to move on quickly and not grief about Gatsby death. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (Gatsby 144) Carraway says this about Gatsby’s passing and shows that narrator had no inkling of grief for his “good friend” Gatsby.