Question 1 - Carson Corrick

     The narrator throughout The Great Gatsby is Nick Carraway. Nick is from a family that are "prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations" (Fitzgerald 3).  He comes from a fairly nondescript background. He is a World War 1 veteran and after he fights in the war, he moves east to make his fortune.  He wants to trade and sell bonds as a living. He moves to West Egg and is neighbors with Jay Gatsby, who will eventually become his friend.  He often visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, who is married to Tom Buchanan. Nick also attended Yale with Tom.
     On the first page of the novel, Nick says, "'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had" (Fitzgerald).  Young Nick's mind set was forever changed by this quote. He grew up relying on this quote. He grew up with the belief that it was wrong to criticize others when they are of a lower social/financial status. Nick is the type of person who goes with the flow of things. Nick doesn't argue or retaliate in anyway, shape, or form.
     Throughout the novel, my opinion of Nick did start to change.  Nick is one of the only characters that has a change in their personality from the story's beginning to its end.  When Nick first moves to West Egg, he is fascinated by the wealth and freedom, but as the novel progresses, Nick starts to recognize the atrocities that the elite commit towards those they consider beneath them. An example of some of these atrocities can be seen when Tom abuses Myrtle and how Tom and Daisy deal with Daisy murdering Myrtle. Near the end of the novel, Nick says, "After Gatsby's death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes' power of correction. So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home" (Fitzgerald 176). The upper class lifestyle is permanently ruined for Nick due to what he has experienced.  Nick realizes that this superficial life style is not what he desired at all and that he misses the Midwest.