"Nick's main attitude to east coast society is fascination." How far, and in what ways do you agree with this statement?

Authors Avatar

“Nick’s main attitude to east coast society is fascination.” How far, and in what ways do you agree with this statement?

In “The Great Gatsby” the feelings of the main characters are often difficult to work out, and this ambiguity continues with the character of Nick. However, I believe that the feeling of “fascination” could be taken in two different ways – positive and negative. It could mean that Nick is enthralled and entranced wholly by what he sees, or fascinated in that he is amazed by how fake or shallow the people can be on the East Coast.  Throughout the novel, Nick’s thoughts and feelings change frequently, depending on the situation he is in and the people that he is with, and this is why it is difficult to try and establish what his main feeling is as it varies so much. I will look at the main points in the book where the East Coast society is clearly shown, and try to establish Nick’s main attitude and how Fitzgerald presents his thoughts and feelings to us.

        One of the primary places where Fitzgerald displays the society to us is when Nick meets Tom and Daisy. When describing Daisy’s voice, Nick words phrases such as “low, thrilling”, and calls it an “exhilarating ripple”. I believe that this type of description, which occurs frequently whenever Nick talks about Daisy, show his fascination in a positive way with the East Coast world. The words “thrilling” and “exhilarating” imply that Nick is almost mesmerised by her as they are so emotive, something which I believe holds true for the society as a whole – it appears as if Nick is put in something of a trance by the glamour of it. I believe Fitzgerald chose Nick to have this reaction to Daisy because it goes some way to showing his feelings towards the East Coast. This is because Fitzgerald leads the reader to believe that Daisy is supposed to represent the people and the society on the east coast as a whole – by making her pretty, somewhat naïve and somewhat false, Fitzgerald is able to show Nick’s feelings about the situation as a whole through one character. I believe that this aspect of the novel shows mainly the fascination on Nick’s part.

        Although the reader gets the impression that Nick is mesmerised by this world, Fitzgerald makes us doubt this due to the way that he has written some of Nick’s narration. For example, when describing Daisy and her mannerisms, Nick narrates “That was a way she had.” This quote implies that Nick realises that Daisy is not how she presents herself to be, and almost knows that she’s fairly manipulative in the way she acts. There are numerous examples of this throughout; Nick explains that Daisy has “an absurd, charming little laugh”, and the word “absurd” again implies that he finds it too charming to be real. I believe that Fitzgerald wanted Nick’s feelings to be ambiguous - these comments contribute to the impression that if the reader takes away the surface attraction, Nick is actually fascinated by the falseness of the society around him rather than fascinated in wonder. In this way, I would say that Nick’s main feeling here would also be fascination – but not in the same way as the fascination with Daisy and her appearance as I believe that to be more of a surface fascination.  

Join now!

        Whilst I believe these negative comments to be a sign of Nick’s absorption in this world, it is easy to understand why some readers could take them as signs of out and out contempt. Contributing to this view would be the way that Fitzgerald makes Nick sound mocking and sometimes sarcastic towards Daisy. An example of this is when he says “That’s why I came over tonight” in response to Daisy’s question about the story of the butler’s nose. The sarcasm is clearly evident in that reply, and it has an air of mockery to it also as the reader ...

This is a preview of the whole essay