Loyalty is the heart of all virtues. A loyal person remains committed even when it can be costly to do so. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, observer Nick Carraway arrives to New York and moves in next-door to millionaire Jay Gatsby, who he became aligned to. Because Nick Carraway remained loyal to Gatsby, he found himself dealing with the immorality of those around him, leading him to pack his bags and head home. Despite the stories that went around about Gatsby, Nick looked past them to learn who he truly was. “He smiled understandingly… it was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced… the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself… I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care” (Fitzgerald, 49). Gatsby’s obsession with winning people over made him come off as sincere, therefore Nick felt special around him as though he had been chosen over anyone else. Although Nick realized how fragile Gatsby’s mask was, he was not expecting him to be so well …show more content…
"I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: "I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me and I'll get somebody for you–" (Fitzgerald, 156). Nick knew how desperate and lonely Gatsby was in his life and wanted to prove to him and to himself that he did not work for nothing. Nick seemed heartbroken that everyone had abandoned him and he felt somehow responsible for finding someone who cared about him. Despite the hospitality that Gatsby provided thousands of strangers every weekend, Nick was the only one who was generous in