Nick's Symbolism In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Nick’s extravagant description and fascination of Gatsby shows his curiosity of Gatsby’s mysterious character. This is seen in the first actual description of Gatsby’s character on pages 48 and 49. The first detail that Nick points out about Gatsby in this passage is his smile. Nick uses a great amount of descriptive words to describe Gatsby’s smile. He starts off his lengthy description by saying that Gatsby’s smile is one of those “rare smiles” that “you may come across four or five times in life” (48). From this quote, the reader can see that Nick finds Gatsby to be a unique and once-in-a-lifetime type of person. This explains Gatsby’s uniqueness and Nick’s immense interest in Gatsby. As Nick continues describing Gatsby, he personifies his smile and mentions that it “understood you”,

Nick’s personification of Gatsby’s smile describes Gatsby himself. This quote reinforces the fact that there is something different but mysterious about Gatsby that intrigues Nick. From Nick’s point of view, only Gatsby’s has these rare qualities. Nick takes something as simple as a smile and thoroughly describes it with such descriptive words. He does not do this with any other character, and this shows his growing interest in Gatsby’s curious character. Another example of Gatsby’s mysterious character causing Nick to become more curious about him is Nick’s questions about Gatsby. Once Gatsby excuses himself from the conversation with Nick, Nick immediately wants to find out more about him. He instantly asks Jordan “who is he?...Where is he from?...And what does he do?”(48-49). Nick demands this information from Jordan. This shows Nick’s fascination in Gatsby because he wonders more about Gatsby even though he knows that Jordan and no one else can provide anything but rumors about him. In the first chapter of the book, Nick explains that Gatsby truly interests him because of his hopeful promises of life and