Sherriff John Baker initially jails him on suspicion of vagrancy. But Nick quickly wins his sympathies and together they hunt down and imprison most of the men who attacked him. Unfortunately the group's ringleader — Baker's own brother-in-law Ray Booth — manages to evade capture. Baker deputizes Nick in order to look after the prisoners, as both they and he are beginning to show signs of the superflu. When it becomes apparent that the plague is wiping out the town's population including the sheriff, his wife, the doctor, and one of the inmates Nick lets his attackers go so they have a chance of survival.
However, a dying and enraged Booth finally comes out of hiding, stalks Nick, and attempts to strangle him. In the resulting struggle Nick suffers a gouged eye, and a bullet wound when his unholstered gun accidentally fires; but he manages to shoot and kill Booth. After recovering from his injuries including a near-fatal infection from the gunshot-wound Nick leaves Shoyo and ends up in May, Oklahoma.
On the way they pause in Pratt, Kansas and encounter Julie Lawry. Immature, flirtatious and self-absorbed, Julie initially manages to seduce Nick; however he quickly realizes she is emotionally and mentally unstable. When she maliciously upsets Tom by telling him the Pepto-Bismol Nick is offering him is really poison, Nick becomes fed up. He slaps her, and orders her away at gunpoint. She retaliates by disabling their bicycles, scattering their supplies, and attempting to snipe them with her own firearm until they flee town.
This can be tricky because you have to compare Nick's narration with his dialogue, his actions, and how he chooses to tell the story. You also have to realize that when you're analyzing the other characters, you're doing that based on information from Nick, which may or may not be reliable.
Basically, nothing we hear in the novel can be completely accurate since it comes through the necessarily flawed point of view of a single person. The best way to analyze Nick himself is to choose a few passages to close read, and use what you observe from close-reading to build a larger argument. Pay close attention to moments, especially Nick's encounters with Jordan, that give you a glimpse at Nick's emotions and vulnerabilities.
We will demonstrate this in action below! Pictured: the rose-tinted glasses Nick apparently starts to see Gatsby through. Since Nick gives a roughly chronological account of the summer of , we get to see the development of Gatsby from mysterious party-giver to love-struck dreamer to tragic figure who rose from humble roots and became rich, all in a failed attempt to win over Daisy. If Gatsby was the narrator, it would be harder for Fitzgerald to show that progression, unless Gatsby relayed his life story way out of order, which might have been hard to accomplish from Gatsby's POV.
The novel would have also been a much more straightforward story, probably with less suspense: Gatsby was born poor in South Dakota, became friends with Dan Cody, learned how to act rich, lost Cody's inheritance, fell in love with Daisy, fought in the war, became determined to win her back, turned to crime. In short, Fitzgerald could have told the same story, but it would have had much less suspense and mystery, plus it would have been much harder to relay the aftermath of Gatsby's death.
Unless the point of view abruptly switched after Gatsby was shot, the reader would have no idea what exactly happened to Gatsby, what happened to George Wilson, and finally wouldn't be able to see Gatsby's funeral.
Plus, with a narrator other than Gatsby himself, it's easier to analyze Gatsby as a character. Nick is very observant, and he is able to notice things about Gatsby, like the way he misses social cues , subtle shifts in his mood, and even smaller details like his arresting smile.
We probably wouldn't have seen these facets of Gatsby if Gatsby himself were telling the story. Finally, since Nick is both "within and without" the New York elite, he is an excellent ticket in to the reader—he can both introduce us to certain facets of that world while also sharing in much of our shock and skepticism. Nick is just like the "new student at school" or "new employee" trope that so many movies and TV shows use as a way to introduce viewers into a new world. With Gatsby as narrator, it would be harder to observe all the details of the New York social elite.
In many ways, Nick is an unreliable narrator: he's dishonest about his own shortcomings downplaying his affairs with other women, as well as his alcohol use , and he doesn't tell us everything he knows about the characters upfront for example, he waits until Chapter 6 to tell us the truth about Gatsby's origins, even though he knows the whole time he's telling the story, and even then glosses over unflattering details like the details of Gatsby's criminal enterprises , and he's often harsh in his judgments and additionally anti-Semitic, racist, and misogynistic.
As a reader, you should be skeptical of Nick because of how he opens the story, namely that he spends a few pages basically trying to prove himself a reliable source see our beginning summary for more on this , and later, how he characterizes himself as "one of the few honest people I have ever known" 3. After all, does an honest person really have to defend their own honesty? However, despite how judgmental he is, Nick is a very observant person, especially in regard to other people, their body language, and social situations.
For example, in Chapter 6, Nick immediately senses Gatsby isn't really welcome at the Sloanes' house before Tom says it outright. Nick is also able to accurately predict Daisy won't leave Tom at the end of Chapter 1, after observing her standing in the door with Tom: "I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away.
It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head" 1. If only Jay could have seen Daisy's intentions so clearly!
In short, Nick delegates to another narrator when he knows he doesn't have enough information , and makes sure the reader comes away with a clear understanding of the fundamental events of the tragedy.
In short, you shouldn't believe everything Nick says, especially his snobbier asides, but you can take his larger characterizations and version of events seriously. But as you read, try to separate Nick's judgments about people from his observations! A hero, or protagonist, is generally the character whose actions propel the story forward, who the story focuses on, and they are usually tested or thwarted by an antagonist.
So in the most traditional sense, Gatsby is the hero —he drives the action of the story by getting Jordan and Nick to reintroduce him to Daisy which leads to the affair, confrontation in Manhattan, the death of Myrtle, and then the murder-suicide , he goes up against an antagonist of sorts Tom , and the story ends with his death. Gatsby's story is thus a cynical take on the traditional rags-to-riches story. However, some people see the protagonist as also the person who changes the most in the course of a story.
In this case, you might argue that since Nick changes a lot during the novel see below , while Gatsby during the story itself doesn't change dramatically his big character changes come before the chronology of the novel , that Nick is in fact the protagonist. Nick's story is a take on the coming of age narrative—he even has an important birthday 30 in the novel! Basically, if you think the protagonist is the character who propels the action of the story, and someone who has an antagonist, it's Gatsby.
But if you think the protagonist is the person who changes the most, you could argue Nick is the hero. We never get a physical description of Nick, so don't blame yourself if your mental image of him is bland and amorphous like this fellow.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. As the summer goes on, he meets someone wildly more hopeful than he is—Gatsby, of course—and he begins to be more cynical in how he views his own life in comparison, realizing that there are certain memories and feelings he can no longer access.
Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air.
But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever. Finally, after the deaths of Myrtle, Gatsby, and Wilson, as well as the passing of his thirtieth birthday, Nick is thoroughly disenchanted, cynical, regretful, even angry, as he tries to protect Gatsby's legacy in the face of an uncaring world, as well as a renewed awareness of his own mortality.
Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away. After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone.
Nick goes from initially taken with Gatsby, to skeptical, to admiring, even idealizing him, over the course of the book. When he first meets Gatsby in Chapter 3, he is drawn in by his smile and immediately senses a peer and friend, before of course Gatsby reveals himself as THE Jay Gatsby:. He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly.
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.
In Chapter 4, Nick is highly skeptical of Gatsby's story about his past, although he is somewhat impressed by the medal from "little Montenegro" 4. He looked at me sideways—and I knew why Jordan Baker had believed he was lying. He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before.
And with this doubt his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him after all. He also seems increasingly skeptical after his encounter with Meyer Wolfshiem, who Nick describes very anti-Semitically. When Wolfshiem vouches for Gatsby's "fine breeding," 4. In Chapter 5, as Nick observes the reunion between Gatsby and Daisy, he first sees Gatsby as much more human and flawed especially in the first few minutes of the encounter, when Gatsby is incredibly awkward , and then sees Gatsby has transformed and "literally glowed" 5.
Notice how warm Nick's description is:. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room 5. In Chapter 6, Nick honestly and frankly observes how Gatsby is snubbed by the Sloanes, but he seems more like he's pitying Gatsby than making fun of him.
It almost seems like he's trying to protect Gatsby by cutting off the scene just as Gatsby comes out the door, coat in hand, after the Sloanes have coldly left him behind:. Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby with hat and light overcoat in hand came out the front door.
By Chapter 7, during the confrontation in the hotel, Nick is firmly on Gatsby's side, to the point that he is elated when Gatsby reveals that he did, in fact, attend Oxford but didn't graduate:. I wanted to get up and slap him on the back. I had one of those renewals of complete faith in him that I'd experienced before. As the rest of the novel plays out, Nick becomes more admiring of Gatsby, even as he comes to dislike the Buchanans and Jordan, by extension more and more.
Why exactly Nick becomes so taken with Gatsby is, I think, up to the reader. In my reading, Nick, as someone who rarely steps outside of social boundaries and rarely gets "carried away" with love or emotion see how coldly he ends not one but three love affairs in the book! Gatsby's fate also becomes entangled with Nick's own increased cynicism, both about his future and life in New York, so he clings to the memory of Gatsby and becomes determined to tell his story.
At first, this might not seem plausible—Nick dates Jordan during the book and also admits to a few other love affairs with women and at one point confesses to being "half in love with [Jordan].
First of all, consider the odd moment at the end of Chapter 2 that seems to suggest Nick goes home with Mr. I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear , with a great portfolio in his hands. If you wanted to be charitable, you could say that Nick realizes he's being drawn into a dishonest lifestyle, and that's what makes him scurry back West.
Right after Jordan calls him a "bad driver," he tells her, "I'm thirty … I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor" 9. But what is Nick lying about? That he loves her? That he belongs in this world? That Tom and Daisy are living acceptable lives? It's not entirely clear. What is clear is that this crazy summer has jolted Nick back into real life.
He's not cut out for a world of moral ambiguity. But is that because he's got more than his share of the "fundamental decencies" 1. Or is it because he, like Tom and Daisy, is careless, fleeing the mess he's made? Or because he finally realizes that there's no real difference between himself and Gatsby?
Look at what he says about returning West:. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.
Nick is saying that he doesn't want to deal with the immorality of the high society kids he's been hanging around with. But he excludes Gatsby from that scorn. Well, maybe Nick and Gatsby aren't all that different. Sure, Gatsby was a bootlegger—but Nick's family came by their money selling hardware and then invented a fake story about having ducal blood.
If there's a difference okay, besides the fact that bootlegging is illegal , we're not sure what it is. Is he a morally upright honest narrator, giving us an unflinching look at the consequences of unbridled wealth? Or is he fundamentally untrustworthy, blinded by his admiration of wealth and glamor, and his own failed attempts to access the world of the rich and famous?
And has he really learned anything from his experience? We're not sure about the first question, but we think we might have some clues to the last. Nick exposes Gatsby's obsession with a fantasy. The Daisy he loves no longer exists, and trying to reach five years back in time ends up killing him.
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