Haley Monsebroten
English 10
Miss Fordahl
February 18, 2014
There were many life lessons that could be learned from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. My favorite is that you shouldn’t critique others.
There always has been and probably always will be criticism in the world. People will always judge people on what they have or don’t have, the way they look, or the way they act. Nick states in the beginning of the book that his father taught him to reserve judgement for others that are less fortunate than himself.
The ability to reserve judgement for people is one of the greatest things you can do. You should not judge others until you have walked a mile in their shoes, you have no idea what they have gone through, or what they are going through. People also should not be judged on how they look, dress, or how much money they have, they should be judged on how they are as a person.
Nicks open mindedness allowed him to see what kind of a man Gatsby really was. He saw him as how he was as a person instead of how others saw him as a mysterious man who more than likely got all his money illegally. In the end, Nicks ability to see Gatsbys true personality was the only thing that kept his memory alive. After his death, Gatsby was blamed with murder, adultery, and bootlegging, and nobody cared about him enough to say it wasn’t true except Nick.
I believe the ability to see past what somebody looks like, and how much money they have and actually see somebodys true personality is one of the best qualities a person could possess. Most people think that having money and being popular is what life is all about, but when it boils down to it, none of that matters to the people who actually care about you. They see you for who you are, not what you have, and that is the most important thing in life.
