“They’re a rotten crowd – you’re worth the whole damn bunch,” Nick tells Gatsby. Do you agree?
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the reader is presented with a 1920s American society that has become corrupt due to diminished values and the high aim of material success. This group of people referred to as the “rotten crowd” and are portrayed as inconsiderate and self centered. Jay Gatsby otherwise known in his humble past as James Gatz is given a compliment by the narrator and character of the story Nick Carraway. This compliment about Gatsby being “worth the whole damn bunch” validates his whole being, and is the final way that Nick displays to the reader Gatsby’s respectable nature and upright values compared to the rest of
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Nick is made the narrator of the story that he is to tell of Jay Gatsby and is the reliable one who tells us that he must “reserve all judgments”. Nick’s values are rather parallel to Gatsby’s values of loyalty and honesty. Throughout the story, Nick’s admiration of Gatsby grows as they become friends although he “disapproved him from beginning to end.” As we are told the story from Nick’s point of view, the reader is forced to accept his thoughts and observations of the whole society, but most of all Gatsby. Nick realises that Gatsby has invested his whole self into trying to achieve his dream and Nick is in admiration of his determination. Gatsby is portrayed as a purposeful being through Nick and this is the main reason why the readers also believe that Gatsby is such a commendable character. Therefore, Nick’s compliment stating that Gatsby is “worth the whole damn bunch” encourages the reader to feel the same way that Nick does about Gatsby. Fitzgerald encourages the reader to have the same values as Nick and Gatsby and uses Nick to show that the morals of the “rotten crowd” are substandard compared to Jay