Nick is particularly taken with Gatsby and considers him a great figure. He sees both the extraordinary quality of hope that Gatsby possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect world.
For if he does have Daisy, he cannot have all the luxuries he has now, which is a complete deal-breaker for Daisy (because she only married Tom for his money). And if Gatsby has the luxuries, he cannot have Daisy. He becomes this tragic love story, and this causes Nick to take particular interest in him.
Nick sees the loneliness in Gatsby and can relate to that on a major level. Although Nick did not fully agree on most of the things Gatsby has done but he can understood why he was doing each of his actions. This is what brought them close to each other.
Why does Nick respect Gatsby more than Tom and Daisy?
Nick feels sympathetic toward Gatsby in part because of the relative depravity and despicableness of Tom and Daisy, and also because Gatsby has no other real friends.
Yet to understand The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway must be analyzed, for he is central to the novel, ever-present yet always hiding behind his adoration for the titular Jay Gatsby.
What made Gatsby great in the eyes of Nick was his ability to self-invent and the way he was able to make his hopes and dreams into a reality. Ironically this can be described as Gatsby's ability to make his American Dream real.
When he first meets Gatsby, Nick is instantly swept away, and spends the whole novel riveted by this man's triumphs and secrets. It's obvious that Gatsby romanticizes Daisy, but Nick is constantly romanticizing Gatsby. One could read The Great Gatsby as a rationalization of misplaced love.
Tone Nick's attitudes toward Gatsby and Gatsby's story are ambivalent and contradictory. At times he seems to disapprove of Gatsby's excesses and breaches of manners and ethics, but he also romanticizes and admires Gatsby, describing the events of the novel in a nostalgic and elegiac tone.
Nick also admires Gatsby's heightened sensitivity to the promises of life and his extraordinary gift for hope . However, Nick also has traits that he dislikes about Gatsby. He sees Gatsby as naive, posturing, and a little ridiculous .
Tom Buchanan comes from a very rich family, while Jay Gatsby comes from a really poor family. Tom Buchanan is powerful and important in society because of his family roots. Jay Gatsby does not have the same importance and power because he comes from a lower social class.
Apparently, he started off penniless and made his money selling illegal, over-the-counter liquor in his drug-store empire during the first two years of prohibition. Read: Invest in pricey cognac? Kevin Roose, for New York Magazine, calculates that with the low profit margin nature of the bootlegging business.
Gatsby then says that he served in World War I and has received medals for his actions, which he shows to Nick. Gatsby shows Nick a photograph of himself at Oxford. Nick initially thinks that Gatsby is lying, but after he sees the photograph taken at Oxford, Nick begins to believe Gatsby.
Nick's bias becomes clear in the earliest pages of the book, when he tells us that “there was something gorgeous about him [Gatsby], some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.” We are inclined to see Gatsby as a sensitive genius and to side with him in the romantic triangle between Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom.
How does Nick feel about Gatsby's offer to compensate him for his help by hiring him? Nick is concerned that the work will be illegal. Nick is offended that Gatsby is offering to pay him for his help. Nick appreciates the offer, but regretfully declines.
He sees both the extraordinary quality of hope that Gatsby possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect world. Though Nick recognizes Gatsby's flaws the first time he meets him, he cannot help but admire Gatsby's brilliant smile, his romantic idealization of Daisy, and his yearning for the future.
Nick compliments Gatsby by calling him "the most hopeful man" he had ever met, impressed by his determination and sincerity. Nick feels compelled to commend Gatsby because he recognizes his deep passion for his goals, and his genuine generosity of spirit that is rare in the wealthy circles they move in.
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.
Nick, the main character, has contradictory feelings when it comes to Gatsby, his rich and showing-off neighbor. He dislikes certain things about him, while, at the same time, he admires him. He represents everything that Nick has come to hate about the people who live in the West Egg.
This is at the very end of the novel. Of the late Gatsby, Tom says, “That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust in your eyes just like he did in Daisy's….” And that's why it matters that Nick is gay and in love with Gatsby: because Tom's assessment is spot-on, but Nick will never admit it.
Nick's impression of Gatsby emphasizes his optimism and vitality—something about him seems remarkably hopeful, and this belief in the brilliance of the future impresses Nick, even before he knows what future Gatsby envisions.
Our narrator, Nick, playfully criticizes Gatsby's ability to impress Daisy with such ease, using the technique of sarcasm, because he is jealous of a “perfect” life that he himself does not live. Nick's ever-present jealousy is introduced during the first chapter of the novel.
Without giving too much of the story away—in part because it describes almost any budding author, with that slight touch of autism that never quite connects with the world except through imagination and writing—Carraway eventually winds up back in New York.
Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care.
