This is essay talks about Nick's loss of innocence and his growing awareness.

Gatsby’s claim to love Daisy is nothing more than wanting to complete his collection of the grand prize being a trophy wife. It became apparent to Nick that Gatsby wanted to repeat the past in order to win the award of a perfect woman. While reminiscing, Nick realizes Gatsby’s desire was that, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house- just as if it were five years ago” (Fitzgerald 109). Gatsby’s relentless need to ‘get the girl’ blinds his ability to comprehend Daisy’s feelings of the situation. His want to shatter the Buchanan’s marriage

Once said by Chris McCandless, “The joy of our life comes from encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” Both Chris McCandless and Nick Carraway created new lives for themselves based off of independance and self-reliance. McCandless wanted to get away from society and took drastic measures to do so. Carraway moves from Minnesota into West Egg in Long Island to learn about the bond business and live on his own. Both Chris McCandless from Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer and Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald traveled down different paths going against what they knew to begin new lives.

Jay gatsby is a man who no one really knows personally so when Gatsby starts to open up and talk to him Nick does not really know if he should believe what he is saying. When Gatsby starts to tell Nick about his love for daisy and how he wants to be married to her again Nick tries to make it easier for them to get together. Gatsby has been trying to show Daisy how much he loves her but Daisy just is not sure that she loves him the same way she used to when they first met. Jay Gatsby did some things that could get him in trouble to live a life that most people wanted to live. Although Jay Gatsby obtained all the money he ever needed, he never reached his goal of having daisy as his own.

Nick’s cynical response to Gatsby’s meeting with Daisy shows Nick’s response to the American dream as a whole. Characterization is a way of defining characters personality through their thought, words, and actions. Gatsby reunites with Daisy when she comes over for tea at Nick’s house. She and Gatsby spend the afternoon together, observed by Nick. Nick thinks, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through any fault of her own, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything” (Fitzgerald 95). Nick’s perspective that Daisy must have “tumbled short” of Gatsby’s dreams devalues the level of Gatsby’s love for her, yet, Gatsby never verbalizes or indicates that Daisy has fallen short of his dreams. Here, Nick is expressing his cynicism towards the American Dream by critiquing Gatsby’s American Dream.

With both wanting to derive something from their relationship, the two struggle to help each other out with their friendship resulting in a terrible manner. The two different sides and perspectives of their friendship seem to contradict each other with Nick and Gatsby incapable of being reliable and straightforward. Although, Gatsby and Nick share secrets and communicate endlessly with one another, Gatsby and his urge to reignite his love with Daisy creates a downward path towards the end of their relationship. Gatsby and Nick create a friendship that is unable to last long as the two cannot express a real and honest relationship towards each

The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays a world filled with rich societal activities, love affairs, and dishonesty. Nick Carraway is the busy narrator of the book, a curious choice considering that he is in a different class and almost in a different world than Gatsby and the other characters. Nick relates the plot of the story to the reader as a part of Gatsby’s circle. He has hesitant feelings towards Gatsby, despising his personality and corrupted dream but feeling drawn to Gatsby’s wonderful ability to hope. Using Nick as an honorable guide, Fitzgerald attempts to guide readers on a journey through the novel to show the corruption and failure of the American Dream. To achieve

When Gatsby reveals to about his relationship with Daisy, Nick’s relationship with Gatsby takes a full u-turn as it rapidly advances their association from simple acquaintances to close friends. Nick’s outlook of Gatsby undergoes a similar transformation. When Nick learns of the previous relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, Gatsby’s actions make sense to Nick. The mansion, the extravagant parties, and the green light were all in the efforts for making Daisy notice him. Gatsby lives his life for the past life that he lived. He spends his life seeking the attention of his love, Daisy, and as Nick explains, “He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…” (Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby sought out the American dream in order to win over the love of Daisy which creates a different perception of himself to Nick. Nick, now knowing Gatsby’s intentions worries about Gatsby’s possible rejection, and then warns him that, “[he] wouldn’t ask too much of her, you can’t repeat the past.” (Fitzgerald 110) But Gatsby, blinded by love, strives to win Nick’s married cousin’s heart. Nick perceives Gatsby as a man dwelling on the past

One thing that surprises me about Nick is that he was loyal to Gatsby who seemed likeable enough but empty inside. He seemed like the picture was more important than the real person. Nick was interested in person and would put himself in a bad light to help a friend. “I didn’t want to go to the city. I wasn’t worth a decent stroke

62) Gatsby even asked Nick for his help to put him and Daisy in the same room together earlier in the novel. Nick agrees and eventually an affair ensues between Gatsby and married Daisy. This alone depicts exactly what Nick means when he speaks about how close Gatsby was to his dream and how it was almost impossible for him not to achieve it. He somewhat has won Daisy over by throwing his wealth in her face every chance he had. However, Daisy was already used to the lifestyle that Gatsby just newly acquired. This realization speaks through the next portion of the passage. “He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city” (pg. 180). His dream of winning Daisy back is trapped in the past because she is now married to Tom. Gatsby fails to accept the fact that times change and so do people. Daisy was not the same person he knew all those years ago. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything” (pg. 22). Living lavishly was not new for Daisy like it was for Daisy. She had traveled the world and done everything she wanted to do so nothing really excited her anymore. Despite her love for Gatsby, Daisy decides to stay with tom when Gatsby demands she tell her husband she never loved him. Her decision shows that Gatsby’s dream of winning Daisy’s love back was indeed in the past. The icing is put on the cake when Tom exposes Gatsby for

Initially, he appears to follow in its tradition, the archetypal self-made man. Nick Carraway, newly arrived in West Egg, sees Gatsby's enormous imitation-French mansion with its "marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawns and gardens" and assumes he is just another member of the fashionable super-rich. Yet Gatsby is not the "florid and corpulent" man Nick expects. He is young, elegant and charming. Nick has established himself to be a good judge of character, and when he instantly likes and approves of Gatsby, he guides the reader to do the same. Gatsby is something of an enigma at first. Nick cannot understand how such a young man can "drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound". At this point in the novel, Gatsby is living the American Dream; a self made, wealthy man, he is a shining example of how hard work can lead to material success. Gatsby's mansion also provides the location for his lavish parties. However, when Nick attends one such party he finds Gatsby to be the focus of malicious gossip, suggesting all is not well. Gatsby's true past, or at least a fraction of it, is not revealed until the end of chapter four, and the full story until chapter eight.

A major internal conflict in this novel is between Gatsby and his past. Gatsby’s desire and purpose to return the past time when he and Daisy might had a future together. Gatsby strongly believes that he can reiterate the past and when Nick is trying to explain him that he cannot do this he refuses to believe that he cannot repeat the past.

(Fitzgerald 110). Gatsby is so content with repeating the past he's not thinking clearly He can’t repeat the past they’re in different places in their life . Which is why Nick is trying to tell him that you can’t repeat the past because at this point it’s impossible for them too. As Gatsby was explaining to Nick about what happened on the way back from The Plaza Hotel, Nick responded saying “You ought to go away [...] he couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do”(Fitzgerald 148). Gatsby in the midst of everything happening still doesn’t want to leave Daisy, even though at this point it’s clear she isn’t going to leave Tom.

Nick eventually realizes that Gatsby is trying to buy back the past-- trying to “recover something, some idea of himself perhaps that had gone into loving Daisy” (Fitzgerald 90). Nick tries to convince Gatsby that “[he] can’t repeat the past” (Fitzgerald 90), but, blinded by his longing for Daisy, Gatsby ignores Nick and suggests that he can “fix everything just the way it was before” (Fitzgerald 90). The death of his dream happens when Gatsby realizes that he can’t buy back the past no matter how hard he tries. Not only can Daisy simply not live up to his expectations; she doesn’t have the strength to admit she has no feelings for Tom. Once the dream has perished-- it’s like Gatsby has nothing left to live for. The so-called scales fall from his eyes and he sees the world in a new light…rather, in a profound darkness. With the death of his dream comes the death of Gatsby himself. Gatsby, sadly, dies without accomplishing anything that he had hoped for. He worked so hard to make one dream come true; that he forgot to realize what would happen if that said dream failed

In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway functions as both the foil and protagonist, as well as the narrator. A young man from Minnesota, Nick travels to the West Egg in New York to learn about the bond business. He lives in the district of Long Island, next door to Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man known for throwing lavish parties every night. Nick is gradually pulled into the lives of the rich socialites of the East and West Egg. Because of his relationships with Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, and others, along with his nonjudgmental demeanor, Nick is able to undertake the many roles of the foil, protagonist, and the narrator of The Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is told from the perspective of one of the main characters, Nick Carraway. Nick tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, who is his neighbor in the West Egg. Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as a man who everyone wants to know and copy but deep down are very envious of him. Gatsby trusts few people and those whom he trusts know his life story. To everyone else, he is a mystery. Everyone seems obsessed with Jay Gatsby. For this reason the novel revolves about rumors of Gatsby rather than the truth.