How Does The Great Gatsby Relate To Nick's Life

“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.” This quote from Gilda Radner incorporates the essence of what Nick has to learn. Nick’s father had taught him a big life lesson at an early age. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had” (Fitzgerald 1). This is a lesson that would help guide him into his adventure of independence. Through new experiences, Nick finds out the person he is truly meant to be. Starting fresh is so rejuvenating to some, but it can be a burden to others. Nick took a different approach to his life by moving from the state of Minnesota to the district of Long Island. “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer” (Fitzgerald 4). He went there to explore who he was, and the person he wanted to become. He had come from a very proper and prim lifestyle, to living in a small house in the suburb by himself with a peculiar neighbor they called Gatsby. Nick thought this move would bring him work advancements, and an independent fate. Little …show more content…
At the beginning of this lifestyle pulled him in with the most excitement. He was happy for a bit, but that happiness doesn’t always stay. When he finally decided he wanted to back to his original life he had to break off everything in the new one, even if it was painfully hard. “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away” (Fitzgerald 177). He knew that to be true to the person he wanted he had to give up the new thing in his life to start fresh, or rewind back to the way he was before. Nick figured out who he was as a human, and understood the price he took to do