Gatsby to Nick to Fitzgerald himself---because of their immersion in a world of superficial, materialistic, class-oriented snobbery, can that reader be certain that he or she is actually so free of the same symptoms of indoctrination in the American Dream?
The answers to these questions will determine the attitude of the reader toward this book and its characters. The relationship of Nick to Gatsby is based on Nick's perceptions of Gatsby and of himself, and those perceptions are decidedly contradictory and ambiguous. From the beginning of the book, Nick sets himself up as a character superior to the others in different ways.
For example, he begins his narrative recalling his father's admonition not to judge others because "all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had" (5). We are led to believe that Nick has made this admonition a part of his consciousness, a part of his heart and soul. If this were true, Nick would be able to move about in this superficial, materialistic, self-centered world without judging the denizens of that world. In fact, however, Nick takes every opportunity to judge Gatsby, Daisy, the Buchanans---and even and especially Jordan, until he becomes as obsessed with her as Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy.
What Fitzgerald wants us to do is what Nick's father wanted his son to do---to have some sympathy, empathy, compassion, or at the very least pity, for those, such Gatsby and Nick and the others, whom we might otherwise feel inclined to feel superior to. We are invited to see them as victims of a society, of a socioeconomic system, of the American Dream, of the propaganda of such a system.
Fitzgerald is certainly aware of the superficiality of Gatsby and the others, but it is evidently his intenti
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