of
The Great Gatsby
The Narrator Sees Everything…
•
Nick Carraway, the narrator of The
Great Gatsby, experiences all events
that occur in the novel from his own
perspective. Which is why The Police’s
“Every Breath You Take,” stood out as
the song that describes some of the
character’s attributes.
“Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake, I'll be watching you
Every move you make
Every step you take, I'll be watching you.”
– from “Every Breath You Take”
Quotes
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any
one," he told me, "just remember that all
the people in this world haven't had the
advantages that you've had…"
-Nick Carraway, Page 1
 Nick puts this saying at the very beginning of the novel to let his
readers know that his account was not written as a way to criticize the
characters involved. It is another way to ensure the reader that he is
being honest and accurate in his descriptions.
Quotes
I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity
when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an
intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the
intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms
in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and
marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments
is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of
missing something if I forget that, as my father
snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense
of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally
at birth."
-Nick Carraway, Page 1 cont.
Quotes
“We shook hands and I started away. Just before I
reached the hedge I remembered something and
turned around...”
“…‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn.
‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’”
-Nick Carraway, Page 164
 During this juncture in the novel, the audience finds evidence that Nick
Carraway’s character thinks Gatsby is better than the affluent, but often
disrespectful group of people that the protagonist is associated with.
Quotes
"I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had
done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless
and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated
back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever
it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up
the mess they had made…"
-Nick Carraway, Page 191
Quotes
“And as I stat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I
thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the
green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He head come a long
way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so
close he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did no know that it
was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast
obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the
republic rolled on under the night."
-Nick Carraway, Page 193
 This quote shows how Nick observes the world, and it also relates to
success, in that he thinks that Gatsby was so focused on one aspect
that he didn't realize he could've been successful elsewhere.
Nick Carraway’s shades of grey
In Fitzgerald’s novel, the narrator, Nick Carrway, is the least
interesting character, because he only provides commentary
on the story he is telling. Point being, Nick’s lack of action
and skill of reporting makes him often seem like a dull
character. This is why our group found that the color grey
was a suitable color to describe his disposition throughout
the novel.