weak form
...my father gave me some advice.The Great Gatsby · 2013 — Chapter 1 of 18 · 4'15" · C1
Nick Begins His Story, Explained: reserve all judgments
Nick opens the film not with Gatsby but with himself: his father's advice to "see the best in people," his habit of reserving judgment, and the summer he moved to West Egg. Only one man, he says, was exempt from his disgust — and the name lands like a title card.
What happens
A frame story: Nick Carraway sits with a doctor and recounts how he came to New York in the summer of 1922, rented a small cottage in West Egg, and took a job selling bonds while Wall Street boomed. He mentions one man he could never bring himself to judge — his neighbor, Gatsby.
Listen for
reserve all judgmentsin tune with the timessee the best in peoplelure
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Phrase of the scene
reserve all judgments
先不下判断；把评价收着
尼克在疗养院对医生回忆父亲的那句劝告，用它解释自己为什么总把判断收着。
The judge asked the jury to reserve judgment until all the evidence was heard.
Also in this scene
- in tune with the times
与时代合拍；紧跟潮流
- see the best in people
往好处看人；总看到别人的优点
- lure
to draw someone in with the promise of gain, like bait
Everything marked in this scene
24 notes across 69 lines
"Always try to see the best in people," he would say.As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments.be inclined to
As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments.Back then, all of us drank too much.The more in tune with the times we were...And none of us contributed anything new.Disgusted with everyone and everything.Only one man was exempt from my disgust....the single most hopeful person I've ever met.And am ever likely to meet again....record peaks...elision
...record peaks...result participle
...making the liquor cheaper.Wall Street was luring the young and ambitious....in a forgotten groundskeeper's cottage, squeezed among the mansions...past participle phrase
...in a forgotten groundskeeper's cottage, squeezed among the mansions......of the newly rich.To get started, I bought a dozen volumes on credit, banking and investments....hit another high. CLERK: The market's moving up, up, up!...but I gave all that up.liaison
With the sun shining......were it not...inverted conditional
...were it not...Nick Begins His Story, explained
What's really going on
The film's opening does something sly: it makes Nick's memory the frame for Gatsby before Gatsby ever appears. Nick presents himself as tolerant — "As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments" — but immediately admits, "But even I have a limit." That limit is where the story lives. His nostalgia for the boom years is already laced with disgust: "all of us drank too much," Wall Street "was luring the young and ambitious. And I was one of them." The one exception is Gatsby, "the single most hopeful person I've ever met." So the narration sets up its own contradiction: a man who claims not to judge spends the film quietly judging everyone, and reserving his faith for Gatsby alone.
Theme
MemoryNick's whole account is a memory, told to a doctor years later, shaping how we first meet Gatsby.
AmbitionWall Street is luring the young and ambitious, and Nick admits he was one of them.
What you'll learn
- Use see the best in people to stay generous
- Reserve judgment when you need restraint
- Hear the more as rising irony
- Catch backfire when a plan hurts itself
Listen for
- gave me some — weak form
- record peaks — elision
- With the sun shining — liaison
In my younger and more vulnerable years...Nick's framing: he's looking back on a time when he was young and exposed to the world's judgments — the voice of a man remembering rather than living.
As a consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments.His father's advice left him unwilling to pass judgment on anyone; he presents this tolerance as a family trait and a personal code.
Only one man was exempt from my disgust.After that summer Nick is disgusted with nearly everyone, but he singles out one man whose memory he still keeps clean.
...the single most hopeful person I've ever met.His verdict on Gatsby: not wealth or charm, but hope — the quality that made him impossible to judge and impossible to forget.
Questions about this scene
Why is Nick telling this story to a doctor?
The film frames the novel as Nick's recollection, delivered while he is in a sanitarium. That device turns his narration into something confessed and written down rather than simply told, and it explains the searching, retrospective tone.
Why does Nick single out Gatsby as the one man exempt from his disgust?
By the end of the summer Nick is sick of everyone, including himself. Gatsby alone keeps his admiration, because Gatsby's hope strikes him as something rare and unguarded — even after everything that follows.
Who is Nick talking to, and where is he?
A doctor, in what plays like a sanitarium or clinic. The older Nick answers questions, and his replies roll into the film's voice-over, blurring the line between interview and memory.
Is Nick reliable when he calls himself nonjudgmental?
Not really. He says he reserves all judgments, then spends the whole narration judging the people around him. That gap feels deliberate — his tolerance is partly a pose he keeps testing.
What does the "golden roar" describe?
The booming 1920s: record stock peaks, bigger parties, looser morals, and Prohibition making liquor cheaper instead of scarcer. Nick is sketching the excess that will eventually collapse.
The Great Gatsby · 18 chapters
All chapters →
Up next · Chapter 2have the decencyNick Dines with the Buchanans
Watching · Chapter 1reserve all judgmentsNick Begins His Story
Chapter 2have the decencyNick Dines with the Buchanans
Chapter 3sit on the sidelineTom's Secret Apartment Party
Chapter 4old sportNick Searches for Gatsby
Chapter 5a pack of liesGatsby Tells Nick His Life Story
Chapter 6keeps his mouth shutGatsby's Lunch with a Gambler
Chapter 7pomp and circumstanceJordan Tells Gatsby's Backstory
Chapter 8acting like a little boyGatsby's Awkward Reunion with Daisy
Chapter 9If it wasn't forGatsby Shows Daisy His Mansion
Chapter 10to your likingTom and Daisy Join Gatsby's Party
Chapter 11make a point ofDaisy Wants to Run Away
Chapter 12repeat the pastGatsby Refuses to Let the Past Go
Chapter 13Have it your own wayGatsby Meets Tom at Lunch
Chapter 14Nobody From NowhereTom Calls Gatsby Nobody From Nowhere
Chapter 15in our bloodTom Exposes Gatsby at the Hotel
Chapter 16pull yourself togetherThe Yellow Car After the Crash
Chapter 17keep your voice downGatsby Waits Outside Daisy's House
Chapter 18made something of myselfGatsby Keeps Vigil Until DawnChapter 1 of 18 · about 81 min to go