Published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby isn’t just a love story. It is a tangled web of loyalty, betrayal, and moral ambiguity. At the center of this chaos stands Nick Carraway, the narrator who claims to be reserved and non-judgmental. He is not. By the time the ink dries on the final page, Nick has become an active participant in some of the most destructive events in American literature.
His involvement begins with his neighbor, the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby. Nick facilitates an affair between Gatsby and his married cousin, Daisy Buchanan. This isn’t a passive observation. Nick is the glue holding the affair together. He drives Gatsby to Daisy’s house. He arranges the reunion. He watches them rekindle a romance that has been dormant for five years. In doing so, he becomes an accomplice to the unraveling of the Buchanan marriage.
“I’m one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
Nick says this line. He is lying.
His own romantic life is equally fraught. While helping Gatsby pursue Daisy, Nick falls into an unsatisfying affair with Jordan Baker. She is a professional golfer and a close friend of Daisy’s. The relationship is cold and detached. It lacks the desperate passion of Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion. It is hollow. Nick stays in it out of boredom and proximity. He is dissatisfied with the connection, yet he remains entangled.
The novel exposes the hollowness of the wealthy elite through these relationships. Gatsby loves an idealized version of Daisy. Daisy loves the security her husband Tom offers. Nick loves neither, yet he is pulled into their orbit. He wants to believe he is separate from them. He is not.
By the end of the story, Nick is disillusioned. He leaves New York. He retreats to the Midwest. He has seen too much. The affair with Gatsby and Daisy has stripped away his faith in the American Dream. The relationship with Jordan has shown him the emptiness of modern romance.
Fitzgerald does not let Nick off the hook. He makes us complicit. We read Nick’s perspective. We trust his voice. But we also see his flaws. He is not a hero. He is a witness who chose to look away only when it was too late.
