Compare the homes of Nick Gatsby and the Buchanans. How does each homr reflect the personality of its owner ?

Nick's home is a very modest bungalow described as "weather-beaten" and "cardboard". Of course Nick's humble abode is juxtaposed with Gatsby's mansions and others like it. Nick's middle class upbringing is personified in the little house he lives in. It is small, sensible and comfortable in cozy Mid-Western way. The Buchanan's place is gaudy and smells of money. It is excessive and unashamedly opulent. Material wealth is the whole identity of this mansion. Superficiality and decadent waste seems to ooze out of its golden fretted walls. Gatsby's mansion is opulent to be sure but not as excessively vulgar as the Buchanan's place. There is more of a style to Gatsby's place; there is a sense of authenticity, his books are real books, perhaps as an attempt to legitimize his own authenticity.