Stephen L. Carter, Columnist

What 'Great Gatsby' Can Teach Millennials

Nick Carraway, Yale Class of 1915, has lessons for the Class of 2015 on how to live well.

May 29, 2015 at 4:28 PM UTC

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

Tobey Maguire, center, as Nick Carraway.
Source: Warner Bros./Everett Collection

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Members of the Class of 2015, I salute you. Today, rather than issue the standard invitation to dream your dreams and change the world, I would like to talk to you about a book.

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the graduation of Nick Carraway -- Yale Class of 1915, narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece “The Great Gatsby.” (Wait. “Gatsby” doesn’t yet carry a trigger warning, does it? Oh, one has been requested? Dear me. I suppose I’d better talk fast.)