Jay Gatsby’s Influence on Nick Carraway

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Do opposites really attract? The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a perfect example of this. The main character and narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway, claims to be an honest and non-judgemental person. Despite his claim to be a self-preserved person, he becomes exceptional friends with Gatsby. Throughout the story Gatsby tells a myriad of lies concerning his personal life and occupation. So why does Nick become such grande friends with Gatsby despite Gatsby being everything Nick isn’t and dislikes? Nick likes Gatsby because Nick Sees Gatsby's whole person, and Nick longs to become like him because his passion towards Daisy. Unlike most people, Nick sees past Gatsby’s wealth, and sees his whole character and personality. However, this wasn’t always the case. In the beginning of the book, Nick thought “[he] represented everything for which [I have] an affected scorn.”(Fitzgerald, ch. 1). Throughout the novel, Nick undergoes this metamorphosis of his view on Gatsby until chapter 8, he finally tells Gatsby “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”(Fitzgerald, ch. 8). Even after that quote, Nick says that “[he] disapproved of him from beginning to end.”(Fitzgerald, ch. 8). This metamorphosis happens when Nick goes from a small town nobody, to when he moves to New York to become rich. When Nick was out west, he only sees Gatsby as wealth, until he moves to New York and meets Gatsby at one of his parties. After he becomes better friends with Gatsby, he disregards the lies that Gatsby tells, and sees him for his whole person. When he firsts sees Gatsby he states, “Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens” (Fitzgerald, ch. 1). As in an article by Abbey Leitten states “Referring to their land as ‘local

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