The Great Gatsby - Nick Carroway's Role
Uploaded by jasaval on Mar 17, 2000
In his novel The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald had the main character Nick Carroway stand out as being overall, a decent person. Nick stands out especially when being compared to the other characters in the story. It is Nick’s honesty with himself and toward others, his morality, and his unbiased, slow to judge qualities that make him the novel’s best character.
The chain of events that occur in the story begin with Nick meeting Jordan Baker at Gatsby’s party. It was this meeting that causes Nick to mention the topic of honesty. Nick learns about Jordan’s cheating in a golf tournament, and he realizes how dishonest Jordan really is. "She was incredibly dishonest," (Page 58) Nick said, adding, "Dishonesty in a woman is a thing that you can never blame deeply." (Page 59) Jordan seemed to contrast her own dishonesty with Nick’s honesty. On the night of the party, Jordan leads Nick to say,
"Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known." (Page 60)
He supports his words with his actions as a narrator, as well as his role as a character in the story. As the narrator, he was honest with himself, one example being Nick admitting to himself that Jordan was not only dishonest, but selfish and cynical as well, but he loved her regardlessly. As the novel’s main character, he was the only one that did not feel the need to mislead other people. All of the other characters would use an impressive, unreal facade in order to attract people and make a good first impression. For example, Daisy acted completely different around company from when she was with Tom. However, this happened while Nick would always let his honest, true character show through the entire time.
Nick also seemed to be The Great Gatsby’s only uncorrupted, unmaterialistic character. Every other character, including Gatsby himself, seemed to think that money could buy happiness. Gatsby’s though process is a prime example of that: he thought that he could win over Daisy by impressing her with his extravagant parties. The fact is, Daisy, being materialistic herself, probably would have been won over, had she not been already married to a rich man. That materialism is what leads to the character’s corruption. Gatsby was so materialistic that his morality was...