Eastern City In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald
677 Words3 Pages
During the Roaring Twenties, millions of citizens fled to cities to achieve the prized American Dream; the victory of the First World War and the booming stock market made Americans think they were invincible to other nations. Although cities were supposed to be a sign of hope and prosperity, many found themselves lost in a sea of vice. Some tried not to give into the immoral lifestyles that cities led, many eventually did. As shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway moves to New York City and witnesses firsthand the downfall of American society and its morals in the 1920s. As the narrator of Fitzgerald’s novel, Nick demonstrates how one’s migration pattern to the eastern city can corrupt one’s mindset and perspective of society.
In the beginning of the novel, Nick Carraway describes life in the Mid-West. Society holds…show more content… Free from corruption and venality, Nick considers the Mid-West a safe haven prior to moving to New York. As a young boy growing up in the Minnesota, Nick learns not to make impartial judgments others. Since he “inclined to reserve all judgments”, he considers himself an honest, quiet, open-minded, and a good listener (Fitzgerald 1). This demonstrates Nick’s pure mindset before moving to the eastern city. To contrast, after returning from New York, Nick states, “…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” (2). This exhibits how the immoral natures of the