The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a really good book that deals with many different issues with its many different characters. A few of these characters share some characteristics while they are completely different at the same time. In this essay I will show you the similarities and differences in Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway.
First off the similarities. Although there are not many there is a few to be talked about. Number one similarity between Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway is the location of their establishment. Both Jay Gatsby and Nick Carrawy live in the same neighborhood,
West Egg. This is the least fashionable of the two but still a nice place to live. The other neighborhood is East Egg and that is where all the rich people with their old money and mansions lived. The West Egg is for the middle class. Although Jay Gatsby is not middle class, he is not considered to live at East Egg because Jay Gatsby did not inherit his parents money who inherited it from their parents, he worked for it. Another similarity between Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway is they are both hardworking people in search of the American Dream. Jay Gatsby has done a little better in his search than Nick Carraway, but Jay Gatsby still has to work for his money. It was not handed to him like Tom
Buchanan had it handed to him. Jay Gatsby went to Oxford and then supposedly became a bootlegger. This is part of how Jay Gatsby became so rich. Nick Carraway on the other hand went into business and is just surviving. He is not rich, but with some more hard work he is well on his way.
Now onto the differences. Jay Gatsby and his wealth is something that differs from Nick Carraway. Jay Gatsby lives in a mansion where he has his servants that clean and maintain his establishment. Nick Carraway on the other hand lives in a house that he calls an “eye sore” which is stuck between two mansions. Nick Carraway’s house is maintained but not by servants and not as well as Jay Gatsby’s mansion. Nick Carraway also does not obtain the same social status as Jay Gatsby due to the fact that Nick
Carraway is not rich. Being rich gets Jay Gatsby alot of things like ladies, amusement, and
The narrator's likes Gatsby but doesn’t like the fact that he is very wealthy and capable of owning anything.
Gatsby yearns to be part of the high society, but, in reality, he is an outsider to his social class. An important note for this is that he is a very wealthy person and has an expensive mansion, yet he lives on East Egg, while the “real” high society people live on West Egg. Near the end of the novel, Nick showed the reader that he was one of Gatsby’s only real friends; it showed when Nick was one of the only three people that attended his funeral. Nick seems to be more or less the only one who cares about him after his death.
The American standard of success has always been defined by the effort put into receiving this success. Some are lucky and have success come with ease, others have to put in a great deal of work and even then they still fall short of their desired position. Throughout, “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald scrutinizes the collapse of the American dream through Jay Gatsby. Through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the readers experience the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby’s successes. From the initial sequences of the novel it is apparent that wealthiness is the point of which you are judged in the time period the book takes place.
The Great Gatsby has a main set of characters, each with different relations to one another. The story is narrated through the eyes of Nick Carraway, a bonds salesman who lives in a small cottage on Gatsby’s estate. Nick is an honest man who looks out for people and always tries to do what’s right. The book is titled after Jay Gatsby; a successful businessman who is hopelessly in love with Nick’s married cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is a dreamer who will do anything in his power to...
Nick Carraway says Gatsby’s estate is “a colossal affair by any standard” (pg. 3). He described it as “a factual imitation of some Hôtel De Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool” (4). At the beginning of the novel, it is unknown how Gatsby has made his fortune but various rumors are going around that he “killed a man” or that he was “a German spy during the war” (29). As we progress more and more though the novel, we find out that Gatsby is not the man we first thought he was. Tom accuses Gatsby of being a part of illegal activities such as buying many drugstores in New York and Chicago so he could sell “grain alcohol over the counter” (89). F. Scott Fitzgerald never explicitly confirms this, but it is the most logical explanation of how Gatsby gained so much wealth in so little time. Was Gatsby so obsessed with making money that he was willing to do criminal deeds in exchange for it? Even though he was insanely affluent, it does not seem like he will ever be truly satisfied with is
Besides being a great novel, The Great Gatsby is a very symbolic book, not to
No one knows where Gatsby got his riches, but they do know it had to be illegally. So many people thought he was involved in illegal activities because of what happened in the book where, “He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.”(141).This shows that Tom along with many other people are very curious as to how Gatsby earned his money. Tom is just the first to find out what the "drug stores" that Gatsby mentioned are. When Gatsby tries to get Nick involved with him and Wolfshiem, Nick turns it down leading to an awkward confrontation. “This is just a friend. I told you we’d talk about that some other time.”(75). Wolfsheim gets Nick confused with someone wanting to get into their “business”, but Gatsby quickly interrupts, not wanting Nick to find out about his work. Gatsby gets so many phone calls, no one really knows his story, and his fame and riches came almost overnight. These all confirm that Jay Gatsby was indeed involved in
West Egg is where the “middle class” live. Residents are wealthy, but they’re much rowdier than their East Egg neighbors. They throw loud, eccentric parties and “they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks” (45). Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway are both residents of West Egg. Their homes, however, are completely different in size and grandeur. Nick described his house as “. . . an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month” (9-10). The neighbor, later revealed to be Gatsby, is of higher class than Nick, even though they live in the same region due to the size of his home, and his riches. The citizens of West Egg, like Nick and Gatsby, don’t come from wealthy families. Their “non-pedigree” status stops them from getting what they want. For example, Daisy gets tired of waiting for Gatsby to get back from war and acquire wealth, and she marries Tom, a very rich man with family history, instead. The residents of West Egg are stuck between the poverty they escaped and the status they want to achieve, this ...
Jay Gatsby’s life proves the unrealistic expectations people set for themselves when trying to achieve The American Dream. Gatsby used what we think of as The American Dream to help gain Daisy’s love back through things she left him for even if the means didn’t justify the ends. People will do anything to achieve the American Dream and although they have good intentions the American Dream seems to corrupt the mind of even the purest of souls. Gatsby becomes consumed with money, social status, and what his leisure time consisted of because he cannot obtain what he truly wants even with all of his money which shows that the American Dream he strived will never become a reality.
Jay Gatsby is a wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg, where the New Money live. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night and represents the...
Could it be? A not-so-great Gatsby? In the book, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, This is proved all throughout the book in many different scenarios. Jay Gatsby shows how untrustworthy he is, how he got his unexplained money, and how nobody truthfully cares about him in the novel. Jay Gatsby clearly doesn't deserve his title.
Gatsby’s dream is corrupted by the opulence surrounding him; therefore, he fallaciously assumes that material wealth is synonymous to happiness and wealth. In response to Gatsby’s demand Nick Carraway states "the modesty of the demand shook [him]. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths so that he could "come over" some afternoon to a stranger's garden" (83). Gatsby throws lavish parties in hope of attracting Daisy, but Daisy never goes to any of his parties making Gatsby’s attempt seem futile. People in East Egg inherit their money and already have everything they want, they did not work for their money and do not appreciate the same way West Egg does. Daisy already has money meaning there is no reason to be with Gatsby because of money. The parties that Gatsby throws wastes money in an obscene fashion and those parties host shallow attendees only trying to increase their social status. Those parties may appear to East Egg as the vulgarity of nouveau riche, only lowering Gatsby’s social status among those in East Egg. Jordan Baker thinks "[Gatsby] half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night, […] but she never did." (84). Gatsby believes that he can impress Daisy with wealth, but Daisy already has wealth making his parties not impressive. Corrupted by wealth, Gatsby tries too hard to buy his dream and a way into a society that would not fully accept him.
...even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach” (10). He does not necessarily flaunt his money like Gatsby does, but it is still obvious that he has it. Tom is more comfortable with his wealth since he has always had it. Gatsby, on the other hand, shows off a little more and is more extravagant with everything.
Jay Gatsby grew up in a family where money was not an easy thing to come by, but he was determined to change his social standing. He worked hard and dedicated himself
Gatsby is largely a mystery at the story’s beginning, defined by his wealth and influence as well as the rumors that flood the gossip lanes. He resides in West Egg, home of the nouveaux riche, across the sound from East Egg, where the established older money claims home to. He’s largely known for his extravagant parties, open to all corners of society, but he doesn’t participate in none of them. His actions prompt one to guess a reason, which revealed is the sole reason for all of Gatsby’s achievements. When becoming friends with Nick Carraway, he gives him his back story – his family, his travels in Europe, his service in WW1 and his college days in Oxford – all to give him proof that he stems from the same pool of individuals as Nick does. This also unveils Gatsby to be innocent, and honest with most people, traits that come into conflict with his foil the aristocratic bully Tom Buchanan (Daisy’s husband). Even early on, the myth of Jay Gatsby starts to crumble away as its revealed he came to his wealth through criminal endeavors, confirmed by his meeting with Meyer Wolfshiem.