Nick’s Ambiguous Roots

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there is a strong representation of ambiguity within characters. The ambiguity is represented in many forms. Nick’s moral ambiguity is revealed, which raises questions about morality as a whole. F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates a world with many different and strange characters. These characters cannot easily be categorized as good or bad, black or white, rather, they are more grey. Nick Carraway is the novel’s most ambiguous character. His moral ambiguities cause people to question their morals and identify the greys of situations,  how they are sometimes neither good nor bad. Nick’s trustworthiness, in particular, causes him to experience a lot of ambiguity. When he experiences Daisy and Gatsby dance right in front of him, he never tells Tom about an affair which is terrible and immoral. Another way ambiguity is represented by Nick’s inability to speak up for himself. He finds himself in many situations where he takes a step back instead of engaging directly in the situation.

Nick tells readers his greatest attribute is his trustworthiness. However, he will commit his time and energy to keep others secrets that if let out into the real Gatsby world the novel would change entirely. “Don’t bring Tom,” I warned her. (Fitzgerald 83) When Nick says ‘don’t bring Tom’, this is right after he invites Daisy over for tea. Nick is ultimately encouraging the affair, his idea to tell the cousin not to bring her husband sets them up for disaster. Nick’s sly way of contributing to these negative events has caused this to be a neverending theme for him. He is known to be very trustworthy but his stealthy contributions eventually ruin the marriages in this novel. He knows about the affair between Gatsby and Daisy but he knows that anything he says will ruin Tom’s outlook on Daisy but also everyone’s view of him. By not telling anyone, he preserves his relationships with Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom while keeping everything quiet. Affairs in modern times are perceived as a bad and terrible thing. When the Fitzgerald takes this event and shows how Nick feels very impartial to the affair, this changes the idea of an ‘affair’ and makes it something not wrong, not right, but something that is rather left up to interpretation. Another example of Nick’s constant trustworthiness is shown when Nick keeps the secret of Tom’s affair with Myrtle and pushes for it. Nick’s complicitness in this affair causes Tom to feel trust and for Nick to yet again keep a secret. “You see, cried Catherine triumphantly. She lowered her voice again. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a Catholic, and they don’t believe in divorce.” “Daisy was not a Catholic, I was a little shocked at the elaborateness of that lie”.(Fitzgerald 33) Nick listens and observes but seldomly opposes what Catherine says because he knows that Tom and Daisy are not Catholic. He is shocked because the elaborateness of the lie shows that Tom has sparked this lie and made it sound like an actual excuse. Nick’s attention to the elaborateness of the lie shows that he thinks this is too far. He didn’t expect Tom to continuously lie about Daisy being Catholic. This causes their friends to assume that this is the reason they won’t get a divorce. When Nick and Tom go up to New York they decided to go visit his mistress. This trip is when Nick finds all of Toms lies and fibs.  Again Nick is surrounded by lies and he stays loyal to people by keeping their dirty little secrets.

Nick seems to find these ambiguous situations through his inability to speak up for himself many times. Nick’s role as a man who sits back also makes him just as responsible as the people around him. This shows his laziness but also shows that he is trying to protect Daisy. This comes with a sense of loyalty also with Nick being loyal to his friends. Nick knows that Daisy killed Myrtle and he never tells anyone. This shows respect towards staying out of it. The idea of never sharing things come with a sense of either trustworthiness or laziness. Although Nick is contradictory in his feelings for Gatsby when he stands back and says, “I couldn’t sleep all night; a fog horn was groaning incessantly on the Sound, and I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams. Toward dawn, I heard a taxi go up Gatsby’s drive, and immediately I jumped out of bed and began to dress—I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him about, and morning would be too late.” (Fitzgerald 147) Nicks inability to not only help him by warning him, but not even choosing to anything about it. He could condem him and turn him over to the police but that presents a negative outlook on Nick and he can’t deal with that. This idea that Nick does not do either of these things makes him ambiguous. Representing our repetative theme of Nick refraining from engaging in the chaos and instead being lazy.

The overall theme in Nick that encaps ambiguity is his ability to not engage in actions that could hurt him, not physically but socially. Nick is the most educated character in that he knows almost all the gossip. If any other character was placed in the same situations, they would not be able to refrain from telling people about these secrets. Nick finds that letting things work themselves out on their own is more beneficial for himself. The laziness Nick shows is another reason that he is ambiguous. He has the ability to be trustworthy to others and yet play a factor in the destruction of characters and their marriage. His ambiguous self causes Nick to not only be the most interesting character but the most overlooked character in the novel.