Lies

People tell lies for many reasons. Gatsby's reason was he was a nobody that always dreamed of being a somebody. Ever since he was little he was ashamed of his parents and of the life he had, so when he left them, he had to leave the name that tied him to them behind also. he had all of these dreams of these wonderful things that he wanted, and being only the son of a farmer would not help him reach these goals. Now that he achieved these goals, he felt like he had to continue to lie. No one needed to know that he was once a nobody, and isn't actually a part on an influential family. Also, his lies really set him up for a good story, and make his name, Gatsby, sound like he is a somebody. Jay Gatsby would tell people he, as well as most of the people in his family, went to Oxford, which helped give him a sort of status. If he started telling the truth about himself, than his status would be lowered to some of the people that knew him, and in the end maybe if Daisy found out about him through hearsay, her thoughts about him would be lowered also. Nick lied to us because of the same reason. Gatsby has this wonderful feel about him, with all of his money and "things" he owns, and added with the fact that there is something very suspicious about him, it makes you always want to find out what is really behind Gatsby, where did he really come from? He decides to tell us later because we needed to have this understanding of Gatsby and get this idea of him in our head. Also, now that Gatsby found what he was looking for all of these years, he doesn't have all of the same need to put on such a front. Nick realizes this and decides to fill us in on the secret.