My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day. (1.5) |
We see here that Nick is from a "prominent, well-to-do" family; he’s had a comfortable life, but by no means has he lived the luxurious existence that Daisy and Tom have. Based on what Nick says here, it seems as though his family has lived the "American Dream" – hard work got them to where they are today.
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. [...] Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago. (1.14-15) |
The main difference between the two Eggs has to do with the type of upper-class people living in each one. East Egg has mostly people who come from old money, or were born into their riches. West Egg inhabitants are mostly members of the nouveau riche – people who haven’t always been wealthy, but instead have worked their way into their riches.
"You ought to go away," I said. "It’s pretty certain they’ll trace your car." "Go away NOW, old sport?" "Go to Atlantic City for a week, or up to Montreal." He wouldn’t consider it. He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free. (8.5-8) |
Nick understands that the passing of time has rendered Daisy an impossibility for Gatsby. Yet he is unable to pass this knowledge onto Gatsby.
The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names. (3.4) |
Nick talks about a typical party as crowded and rambunctious, yet lonely. In his description of various parties, Nick uses two short phrases that say a ton: "forgotten on the spot," and "who never knew each other’s names." This creates the paradox of feeling alone in a crowded room.
The chauffeur – he was one of Wolfsheim’s protégés – heard the shots – afterward he could only say that he hadn’t thought anything much about them. I drove from the station directly to Gatsby’s house and my rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed any one. But they knew then, I firmly believe. With scarcely a word said, four of us, the chauffeur, butler, gardener, and I, hurried down to the pool. There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red circle in the water. It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete. (8.112-114) |
Nick’s description of Gatsby and Wilson as a "holocaust" is an interesting one. Perhaps Nick sees the murder as being of overwhelming magnitude because Gatsby’s death represents the death of many ideals (the American Dream, or perhaps untarnished love). But the notion that it is "complete" leaves one wondering – what about the others involved? Why does Nick feel that the matter has been put to bed by the death of these two men?
| "I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: "I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me and I'll get somebody for you–" (9.11) |
Nick has much compassion for Gatsby after he’s gone, he seems heartbroken that his friend has been abandoned by everyone. For a man who was so generous and loyal, no one is loyal or kind to him in return (besides Nick, of course, and the owl-eyed man). This says something about Gatsby’s relationships with everyone around him and the shallowness of the society he was in
