‘He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced– or seemed to face– the whole eternal world for an instant, then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.’

Nick acknowledges how the smile is different so it intrigues him. This harnesses the fact of how uncommon and different Gatsby is, it proves he is special. Gatsby can empathise and adapt to every individual who receives this smile. This shows how powerful his smile is as a person would love to have the best belief in themselves and about themselves as possible.

This is Nicks interpretation of the first smile Gatsby gives him. The way Nick described the smile is the way that Gatsby wants to appear to the outside world, a man who’s rich in knowledge, understanding and power. Gatsby makes people feel as though they are golden, important and loved… like what he wants.

METAPHOR Nick states

“After two years, I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and photographers and newspaper men in and out of Gatsby’s front door. A rope stretched across the main gate and a policeman by it kept out the curious, but little boys soon discovered that they could enter through my yard, and there was always a few of them clustered open-mouthed about the pool. Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression “mad-man” as he bent over Wilson’s body that afternoon, and the adventitious authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper reports the next morning“

Here the inevitability of time is mentioned again, it seems as though this moment will go on forever. Gatsby’s life is now officially over, his door was usually open for everybody and his parties attracted those not even invited, now nobody is allowed to enter. People would often come to his home with this look trying to figure out who he is and what his life has been like. Now he’s gone they are still trying to get answers. Gatsby came up often when people would talk bt with no real answer as to who he is, even dead it still appears to be happening.