Looking Beyond The Lights

Looking Beyond the Lights Knowledge is a glorious gift and a wearisome burden. The way in which you choose to act upon that knowledge causes a gruesome war between your mind, heart, and instincts. Nick Caraway, in The Great Gatsby, was more aware of what was truly going on throughout the story than any other character. Nick was constantly sucked into other characters’ lives as currents often do to small, helpless children, pulling them far into the ocean. Characters in the story like Daisy, Gatsby, and Tom felt a divine inclination to tell Nick everything there was to know about them. Despite the endless knowledge he acquired and all the people he was acquainted with, Nick Caraway was an outsider. Throughout the story, it was as if he was …show more content…
Nick’s unique and divergent characteristics are what help me identify with him because honesty is in our blood, our perceptive nature leads us to consider and contemplate things beyond what is directly in front of us, and because of our unique characteristics, we are isolated outsiders. The cliché saying, “Honesty is the best quality” may seem obsolete in our present society, however if people practiced this simple idea, we would live in a much more harmonic world. Nick Caraway was a candid man; regardless of the situation, he never failed to keep his honesty intact. For example, in The Great Gatsby, Nick assisted Gatsby in his inconceivable yearning to win Daisy back by allowing him to use his home as a meeting place, and by imploring …show more content…
In The Great Gatsby, when Nick moved into his new home, he encountered something unordinary. He saw a green light at the end of a pier next door. Instead of just enjoying the view and ignoring his surroundings, he looked beyond the sparkly, shiny green light, unlike small children who would just helplessly stare and get lost in it, and saw a distraught man standing in the distance glaring at what lies across the river, longing for an implausible dream. He came to understand that the man was Jay Gatsby who had many personal dilemmas and was desperate for someone who could never be his again. But, Nick, in his heart, knew this already just from observing Gatsby’s stance. Only a person with true ability to perceive and acknowledge unusual conditions would be able to see what Nick saw. Like Nick, my perception skills are as good as Michael Phelps’ swimming skills. When a new person comes to school or to a family gathering I am quick to observe their actions, conversations, body language, and emotions. I can very easily tell when someone is a plastic Barbie doll or when someone is a genuine being with a kind persona. Observation is the key to understanding someone without communicating with them. Being able to see inside a person’s soul with just a glance is a skill that can lead you to change someone’s life. With this, I am able to see when a person is in need of a comforting, sympathetic friend.