Gatsby Essay

       In the book "The Great Gatsby" you experience the adventure through the eyes of Nick Carraway. A business man who has just moved to West Egg and through him you learn of Jay Gatsby and many other unique characters that have their own problems and characteristics that separates them from everyone else.

       One of the qualities of Nick Carraway is that he is not very judgmental of the characters in the story, or at least not out in the open about it, so he is able to make friends with everyone so that you can see what they are like through Nick's eyes. The eyes of a friend. He made friends right off the bat with Gatsby and this slowly reveals Gatsby's past and secrets as they become closer friends.

       Nick's presence allows for Gatsby to set up meetings with Daisy because he would ask Nick to invite Daisy over for tea and surprise, Gatsby happened to show up too. Nick becomes a character that Gatsby and others are able to confide their secrets too without exposing themselves to the other characters in the story. To Gatsby I believe that Nick is just a way of meeting Daisy on a regular basis because she knows him.

       Throughout the book you meet so many interesting and diverse characters that I feel as though Nick is the medium point or considered "normal" so that you can base all of the other characters off of, kind of using him as contrast too see the differences between each person. An example of this could be that Nick is a business man who is not very wealthy and then you have Gatsby who fought in the war as a decorated officer and is currently very wealthy. The book would have been much different if you took Carraway out of it because it would just be taking out a character that had made an impact of bringing all of the characters together as a link.

       In the end although Nick had his own way of being important to everybody. He did not really accomplish any major feats or deeply affect too many of the characters. Although if Nick never would have showed up to link Gatsby and Daisy, Myrtle and Gatsby might have never been killed in the end of the book. Things were definitely changed by Carraway's presence but not much was accomplished in the time span of the story itself.