Sunday, December 8, 2013

What insights does Nick provide about Jordan's character and what do these insights tell us about him?

Nick Carraway, the filter through whom we view The Great Gatsby(Fitzgerald), is part of the careless and dishonest world he is showing the reader.  He is attracted to Jordan Baker, whom he begins to understand is "incurably dishonest" (63) and careless.  She has cheated in a golf tournament and has ruined a borrowed convertible she left in the rain uncovered and then denied it.  Nick says, "It made no difference to me" (63), and...

Nick Carraway, the filter through whom we view The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), is part of the careless and dishonest world he is showing the reader.  He is attracted to Jordan Baker, whom he begins to understand is "incurably dishonest" (63) and careless.  She has cheated in a golf tournament and has ruined a borrowed convertible she left in the rain uncovered and then denied it.  Nick says, "It made no difference to me" (63), and feels a sort of "tender curiosity" (62) toward her.  He decides to pursue her and shares with the reader that he must break off a relationship with a girl he had left behind before he can do so with a clear conscience.  He then notes he is "one of the few honest people that I have ever known" (64), which is utterly untrue, of course, since at the very least, he takes no stand against the destructive people around him, and at worst, he actively colludes with them.  When Myrtle Wilson is killed, he has had enough of all of them, and he rejects Jordan's invitation to join her and the Buchanans for the evening, in effect, breaking off the relationship.  He sees her one more time, after Gatsby's death, before he goes back west. He describes her as looking like a "good illustration" (185), with all the implications of her being all appearance and having no character.  She is engaged to another man now.  She explains that she had thought Nick  was an "honest, straightforward person" (186), one who could act as a foil to her dishonesty and carelessness.  And Nick responds that he is "'five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor'"(186).  He has learned a great deal, not only about the world, but also about himself, over the course of this one summer in the east, and while it is not clear that he has completely reformed, he will return to the heartland perhaps a better man.

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