Nick Carraway

The Great Gatsby Essay
People have always judged one another. A person makes judgments about another person using known information. Determinants of a person’s judgment of another person may include the speech, behavior, or reputation of that person. In the opening paragraphs of his novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald characterizes Nick Carraway as hypocritical and arrogant by portraying these traits in Nick's words and actions.
Nick's words and actions emphasize his hypocrisy. Nick initially describes himself as "inclined to reserve all judgments" about other people. He claims that he is nonjudgmental and is willing to listen to other people's problems without judging them. However, as more and more people recite their problems to him he begins to "[feign] sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity". Pretending to be unable to listen to their problems, Nick conveys he has grown annoyed by others constantly trying to confide in him, contradicting his earlier statement that he is non-judgmental. By going against his initial claim of being nonjudgmental, Nick demonstrates his hypocrisy. He continues to assert that he wants "no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart".   His words clearly show he is tired of people’s confiding in him. Nevertheless, he decides that Gatsby may be exempt from his reaction to everyone else, though Gatsby "[represents] everything for which [he has] an unaffected scorn". Nick can't bear   listening to anyone else confiding in him, yet he makes an exception for Gatsby, the one person who embodies all the traits that he finds most annoying   Through his repeated self-rebukes, Nick exemplifies and highlights his hypocrisy.
Through both his words and his actions, Nick's arrogance is revealed. Nick was raised in a wealth family in which he could always satisfy his wants. When he feels annoyed by other peoples’ incompetence or lack of intelligence, he necessitates a frequent reminder to himself that...