The Great Gatsby Reading Blog #1 (Ch. 1-3)

The hero of the story thus far is Nick, the protagonist. He is indirectly characterized as an honest, humble person by the fact that he is willing to settle in a less-than-glamorous house in the midst of an exceedingly wealthy neighborhood, not to mention that he lives in West Egg rather than East, which is characterized as the less "fashionable" of the two. He learns from his father at a young age to "reserve all judgments" in regards to other people (pg. 1), and says he is "one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known" (pg. 59). Because of these traits, the audience is inclined to view Nick in a favorable light, much more so than the other characters introduced thus far, thereby making him the hero.

Gatsby, a mysterious character, is the most likely antihero of the story. Along with his moments of extreme kindness and affability, he also carries a dubious aura, leading many characters to speculate about possible hidden secrets from his past, including rumors that he once "killed a man" and was a "German spy during the war" (pg. 44). Upon meeting Nick face-to-face for the first time, he is astoundingly friendly and earnest, almost so much that it is unbelievable: "He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, one that you may come across four or five times in life...precisely at that point it vanished, and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd" (pg. 48). Even with his kindness, his strange behavior, such as when Nick sees him standing alone in his yard very late at night one day and his apparently secret meeting with Jordan Baker during the party, also manages to cast suspicion on him. His positive qualities mixed with his also shady character is what makes Gatsby the antihero.

The most obvious villain we can discern from the first three chapters is Tom Buchanan, who appears the most cross and disagreeable character of the story so far. More importantly, he is the only character who seems to stand in direct opposition of the hero, Nick. Fitzgerald assures a negative impression of Tom from the moment he is first introduced, writing, "'Now don't think my opinion on these matters is final,' he seemed to say, 'just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are'" (pg. 7). Out of all the characters, he treats Nick the most contemptuously, and possesses a superior attitude towards others, as established by the following lines:

"'Nick, what you doing?'
'I'm a bond man.'
'Who with?'
I told him.
'Never heard of them,' he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me." (pg. 10).

Daisy confesses that Tom was not around for her daughter's birth, once again establishing his poor personality and further rooting him as the 'bad guy'.