New Perspective

Throughout life everyone has had some sort of an experience that has changed their perspective on how he or she views his or her life. A major events like death of a loved one or a small incident like a night in jail can cause new meaning on how to live life. In a classical tale called, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway experiences some life changing events in his summer spent in West Egg, Long Island in 1922. In that summer Nick meets Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man, who shares a part of his soul and heart with Nick as he tries to reclaim his long awaited love, Daisy. As Nick sees Gatsby's dreams unraveling he changes his perspective on Gatsby, Tom and Daisy, and the lifestyle of the East, ultimately changing himself.

Nick, while disliking Gatsby, views Gatsby as a symbol of greatness by the

hinting of the title, The Great Gatsby, and is affected by Gatsby's presence in his life. In the beginning of the novel, Nick states that he hated Gatsby for everything he stood for. "On Gatsby, the man who gives his name in the book, was exempt from my reaction-Gatsby, who represented everything for with I have an unaffected scorn. (2) Gatsby was rich, owning a beautiful, grand and gaudy mansion, a flashy yellow Rolls Royce automobile, and embracing an array of grace, assets that created an image of Gatsby that Nick didn't like. Nick realizes that Gatsby is not the man he seems to be, beaming a extraordinary rare smile that "understood you just as 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," (48) in one minute and then turning into an "elegant young roughneck," (48) the next minute. Gatsby is an illusionist, a bootlegger and criminal in disguise as wealthy young businessman. Despite all of Gatsby's faults, Nick also distinguishes Gatsby as a figure of endless hope and power to make his dreams turn into reality. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us." (182) Gatsby, in spite of gaining his wealth with illegal doings, worked his way up from a lowly son of an unsuccessful farmer into prosperous lucrative gentleman, which requires immense strength and determination. Gatsby believed in the promise that his dreams would come true. He believed he could make a better future for himself that included Daisy being with him. He believed that he could gain Daisy's love after her five years of marriage with Tom. "This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the 'creative temperament'-it was the extraordinary gift of hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely shall ever find again." (2) After all his hard work and faithfulness, Gatsby still doesn't obtain his ultimate goal in

the end, which is to win Daisy and her love over for himself only, not knowing that Daisy is not worth that love. In the novel, Nick comes to the conclusive view that Gatsby capability to dream and make his dreams come true makes him "great," even with his faults and ultimate end. Knowing Gatsby has helped Nick see the conflict of creating a dream on the wrong bases and obtaining that dream in the wrong way.

Nick is influenced by the wrong doings down by Tom and Daisy. In the beginning,

Nick sees Tom and Daisy as two incredibly wealth people, with class and sophistication." I waited, and for sure enough in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." (18) Nick watches as both Tom and Daisy play with peoples lives, but he is undisturbed by their actions in the start. Tom, who is an unfaithful husband, is having an affair with a low class mechanic's wife named Myrtle. Nick, knowing this, even goes to meet Tom's mistress and party with them, showing that Tom's extramarital affair doesn't seem wrong to him. By helping Daisy and Gatsby meet again, Nick doesn't show concern of fact that Daisy also having an affair with Gatsby while married to Tom. As the climax of the novel is happening Nick feels disgusted by the behavior of Tom and Daisy and wants to forget about them. "Human sympathy has its limits, and we (Nick and Jordan) were content to let all their (Tom and Daisy) tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind." (136) What is worst to Nick is how Tom and Daisy treated Gatsby. Daisy, who drove over Myrtle and didn't have the dignity to stop after killing her, let Gatsby take the blame for her mistake. Daisy and Tom even let Wilson, Myrtle's husband, kill Gatsby, thinking that Gatsby was the one that ran over his wife. Daisy didn't come to Gatsby's funeral either, knowing how much Gatsby loved her and how he died because of her. Both Tom and Daisy ran away when they knew that trouble was arising. "The were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then