Gatsby is introduced to us through “The Great Gatsby”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as a mysterious character. We know only few details about him; his wealth, clearly shown through the extravagant parties he throws, and his “Oxford” education. In the first few chapters, he could easily be mistaken as a side character, only taking up few bits of the story but somehow increasing the reader’s curiosity. I believe this was Fitzgerald’s way of setting up the character to push the readers to make their own assumptions and see if they are proved right or wrong as they progress through the whole book.
I personally like that this story was told from Nick Carraway’s perspective. He moved to New York to learn more about the bonds business and found himself as a neighbour to the infamous Gatsby. He was continuously fascinated by the amount of money poured into his parties and wanted to learn more about the man behind them all. Whenever Nick tried to gather information, he was continuously cut off or there was a shift in the conversation. Finally, when he was invited to one of his parties, he spent most of the night desperately searching for the host, in attempts to uncover more information about him. Once they finally had a conversation, Nick was astonished at how young he was and their shared experiences- they both served in the war. However, Nick almost immediately became suspicious of Gatsby and felt as though he was consistently withholding information (Fitzgerald 46). One of my first thoughts was that Nick had constructed this image in his mind of this mysterious man who was able to afford such expensive parties and the true image presented in front of him did not match his expectations.
Works Cited:
Fitzgerald, F.Scott. The Great Gatsby. Standard Ebooks, 2021. Project Gutenburg, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/64317/pg64317-images.html.
