The Truth Behind the Mask

It’s simple human nature to want to be the best of the best. Having the upper hand or some sort of advantage in a situation has become a feeling that we have been conditioned to enjoy. We get satisfaction from knowing that we aren’t the “weaker one” when dealing with others. As a result of this nature, we find ourselves trying to recreate ourselves. When presenting ourselves to friends, family, and even strangers, we put on this new image. That image is carefully outlined, shaded perfectly, and molded to be someone that we aren’t. Once that exterior is torn down, you are left with the unedited version of yourself. Your colors are outside of the lines, the darker and lighter parts of yourself is no longer easy to differentiate, and you don’t fit into a perfect little mold.

In the Great Gatsby, every character is what we would call fake. They put on a mask, a facade, that we can easily see through. The narrator, Nick, goes out of his way to reassure the reader that he is in fact always honest and never judgemental. Despite this, he lets a little sliver slip through the cracks. When describing his background in the family he states, “The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day” (Fitzgerald 3). This quote is relevant to the grand scheme of things as it portrays that even our narrator is not who we make him out to be. By going on and on about his family’s history, he is trying to build up this credibility and confidence. In doing so, he is therefore showing how he in fact lacks that confidence and is trying to show that he is someone who he is not.

We must remember that although it is nice, and sometimes even entertaining, to be someone that we aren’t, there’s a reason we are the way that we are. If we were all these clean, crisp little cut outs of one another with perfect backgrounds and no hardships or baggage, we wouldn’t be able to be real, to be human.