‘I am inclined to reserve all judgement, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.“
Nick is very tolerant. Other people see him as quite passive, and harmless. People don’t think Nick will tell anything, and therefore is burdened by other people’s problems, and some can be quite dull. Through the way he is he gets to listen to people freely.
- Nick comes from a moderately rich family in the Midwest, specifically Minnesota. He was born in 1892, and grew up with his family before leaving to Yale, from where he graduated from. He is also related to Daisy, though only barely (second cousin, once removed), and he went to collage with Tom. He moves to New York to try his hand in the bonds business. From this background, we know that Nick has barely interacted with the new money type people from New York. It is said he is a tolerant kind of person, just dealing with people pushing their minuscule problems on him, but in New York, that becomes much more of a deal. He also acts as our gate into New York, as he has never been, leading to him being able to describe in ore detail than a local.
2.
“When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.”
Nick had gotten a look into the lifestyle of the new money type people, and he was kinda disgusting. He saw how they treated those who weren’t as wealthy (Tom to Myrtle, just seeing her as some fling), and just other people in general (Daisy not even bothering to go to Gatsby’s funeral). He wanted his life to go back to how it was when he was younger, because it wasn’t as obsessed with wealth.
“…wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.”
Tom might be called somewhat passive, and in a city where everyone is richer than him, he might feel somewhat intimidated. Tom is well known, and very wealthy, and since Nick is in the bonds business, how much money Tom has could put pressure on him.
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
Nick, being new to this kind of lifestyle, might have a somewhat objective view on it. He sees how inciting it is, a life of glamour, but he also sees all the work and disgusting behavior that is required to achieve it. He sees how someone might fall for it, but he isn’t just viewing from an outsider’s perspective, as he is friends with Gatsby, who got his wealth through bootlegging.
“Most of the time I worked…I knew the other clerks and young bond salesmen by their first names…I even had a short affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction…”
Again, Nick is a passive person. Of course he’d be taken aback by the brother. But since this is talking about a somewhat long amount of time, we see that Nick was mostly just engrossed in his work. He stopped the affair, and went right back into the work. This also show that getting wealthy takes a lot of time and effort.
“I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
Nick sees himself as objective, and not persuaded by many things. With all the lying and scamming in New York city, it would make sense he thinks only he is honest.
They’re a rotten crowd…You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together!’ I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.”
Nick says this, even though he doesn’t really like Gatsby, because Nick sees him as the lesser of two evils. It wasn’t Gatsby who hit Myrtle and drove off. And, in a way, he might even pity him. Nick knows what its like to put in so much effort and not get anything in return, so when he sees Gatsby throwing all these parties with just a hope of Daisy coming back, he can relate.
“I shook hands with him. It seemed silly not to for I felt suddenly as though I was talking to a child.”
When Nick sees Tom after some time, Tom is basically the same. He is still obsessed with the idea of wealth and glamour, and Nick sees that as immature. He grown past it all, during his time in the city.
“I sat there brooding on the old unknown world…”
I think Nick is talking about the world of the new money types. It’s past him, so it’s now old to him, but still unknown. (I don’t really know)
3. At the beginning of the book, Nick is an ambitious young man. He moves all the way to New York city in hopes of becoming successful through the bonds business. This is a Nick who was only presumably known about the new money lifestyle through newspapers, and word of mouth. He is still quite naive about it all. Throughout the book, however, he starts to see the dark underbelly, of both old and new money. He finds out about Gatsby’s bootlegging, and he see’s Daisy’s lack of empathy for someone she killed. At the end, Nick thinks back to his younger self, but he’s grown past that. The summer changed his life, and made him more mature in the end. This is also hinted at when he turns 30 on the day of Daisy and Gatsby’s fight. Not long after this, everything goes down, and he leaves. This is him maturing, and leaving it behind. Although Fitzgerald couldn’t have known this, but it also relates to how society calmed down during the Great Depression, in the 1930’s. Nick, too, is quieting down.