English 3 College Prep.
9 April 2011
The Main Character Even though Fitzgerald has named his book, The Great Gatsby, it is really about Nick Carraway and his educational process. Nick says that his tolerance for not judging other people has a limit after his experiences in the east. He also learns how to judge properly by the end of the story because of the whole situation with Gatsby. The second part of Nick’s educational process is his understanding of excessive desire and its consequences. Nick’s desire for excitement and money is what leads him to the east. And by the end of the story he learned excessive desire leads to chaos and he shows restraint by moving back to his hometown. So there is two parts to Nick’s educational process, one is he learns to judge properly and the other is he learns the consequences of too much desire and decides to show restraint. In the beginning of the story Nick does not judge other but after his experience s in the east his tolerance has a limit. In the second page Nick says: “And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit” (6). After listening to many people, he admits on having a limit on not judging others because he finally got bored and fed up to a point were he just simply does not care what they tell him. He also has a limit because of people like Tom and Daisy, who are just careless people and ruin others lives and make others clean up their mess.
2 By the end of the story Nick also learns to judge properly. Nick says in chapter 1: “Reserving judgment is a matter of infinite hope” (6). From this quote Nick is saying no one should quickly judge or criticize someone because there is always hope that people change for what is right and better. An example is Gatsby; he is the only one exempt from Nick’s judgment because he has meaning and did both right and wrong just to achieve his desire-to get daisy’s love back. Nicks desire for money and excitement leads him to the east. In the first chapter Nick says: “ I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe-so I decided to go east and learn the bond business” (7). Nick comes back restless because in the army he was always moving at a fast pace and there was excitement all around him. When he comes back to the mid-west he realizes it is boring and everything seems to be going at a slow pace. So he decides to go east because that is where all the action is and where the money is being made. Nick learns to restrain his desire from Gatsby and the results of his excessive