the great gatsby the question of nick carraways integrity

Essay on "The Great Gatsby" : the Question of Nick Carraway's Integrity
In pursuing relationships, we come to know people only step by
step.Unfortunately, as our knowledge of others' deepens, we often move
from enchantment todisenchantment. Initially we overlook flaws or wish
them away; only later do we realizeperil of this course. In the novel "The
Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the journeyfrom delight to
disappointment may be seen in the narrator, Nick Carraway. Moving
frominitial interest to romantic allure to moral repugnance, Nick's
relationship with JordanBaker traces a painfully familiar, all-to-human arc.
Nick's initial interest in Jordan is mainly for her looks and
charm. Upon first sightof her at the Buchanan's mansion, he is at once
drawn to her appearance. He Notes herbody "extended full length" on the
divan, her fluttering lips, and her quaintly tipped chin.He observes the
lamp light that "glinted along the paper as she turned a page with aflutter
of slender muscles in her arms." He is willing to overlook her gossipy
chatterabout Tom's extra-marital affair, and is instead beguiled by her dry
witticisms and herapparent simple sunniness: "Time for this good girl to
go to bed," she says. When Daisybegins her matchmaking of Nick and
Jordan, we sense that she is only leading whereNick's interest is already
taking him. It is Jordan, then, who makes Nick feel comfortable at
Gatsby's party, as we sensewhat Nick senses: they're becoming a
romantic couple. As they drive home a summerhouse-party, Nick notes
her dishonesty but forgives it, attributing it to her understandableneed to
get by in a man's world. She praises his lack of carelessness, tells him
directly "Ilike you" and he is smitten, After Jordan tells him the tale of
Gatsby and Daisy's past,Nick feels a "heady excitement" because she
has taken him into her confidence. Attractedby her "universal skepticism"
and under the influence of his own loneliness, Nick overlooking this time
her "wan, scornful mouth" seals their romance by planted a kiss
onJordan's lips. But the attraction can't last and is, by summer's end,
replaced by repugnance. Thesmallest of details, at first, heralds this

falling-apart: "Jordan's fingers, powdered withwhite over their tan, rested
for a moment in mine." Here Fitzgerald has dropped a subtlehint that their
liaison is to be the matter of only a moment, and that Jordan's
"integrity"may be a matter of mere cosmetics. But it is Jordan's failure to
feel the gravity of the realfalling-apart among Tom, Daisy, and
Gatsby that most rankles Nick, and he reacts withdisgust when she
invites him in for a nightcap amid all the emotional wreckage,
thencomplains the next day of his refusal. But Jordan's worst action, in
Nick's eyes, is herfailure to stay on at Daisy and Tom's when Daisy needs
her. The betrayal is far worsethan moving a golf ball, because it is deeply
personal. In the end, with a rueful acceptance of what seemed "meant
to be" but was not,Nick sees that, while Jordan may excite his interest
and passion, the excitement pales inthe light of her lack of "the
fundamental decencies." Though it has been Nick's firstimpulse to
reserve judgments about her, in the end he cannot: the limit of his
tolerancedefines him. In letting go of Jordan because of her lack of
integrity, Nick has held fast tohis.