During the scene at the Morningside Heights apartment, how does Nick initially react to the behavior of the other characters? How does he end up behaving differently from the way he acted back home, and why is this significant?

The fourth and final setting of the novel, New York City, is in every way the opposite of the valley of ashes-it is loud, garish, abundant, and glittering. To Nick, New York is simultaneously fascinating and repulsive, thrillingly fast-paced and dazzling to look at but lacking a moral center. While Tom is forced to keep his affair with Myrtle relatively discreet in the valley of the ashes, in New York he can appear with her in public, even among his acquaintances, without causing a scandal. Even Nick, despite being Daisy's cousin, seems not to mind that Tom parades his infidelity in public.

Explanation:

The fourth and final setting of the novel, New York City, is in every way the opposite of the valley of ashes-it is loud, garish, abundant, and glittering.

To Nick, New York is simultaneously fascinating and repulsive, thrillingly fast-paced and dazzling to look at but lacking a moral center. While Tom is been forced to keep his affair with Myrtle relatively discreet in the valley of the ashes because in New York he can appear with her in public, even among his acquaintances, without causing a scandal. Even Nick, despite being Daisy's cousin, seems not to mind that Tom parades his infidelity in public.