Great Gatsby 3
NICK CARRAWAY has a special place in this novel. He is not just one character among several, it is through his eyes and ears that we form our opinions of the other characters.
Often, readers of this novel confuse Nick's stance towards those characters and the world he describes with those of F. Scott Fitzgerald's because the fictional world he has created closely resembles the world he himself experienced. But not every narrator is the voice of the author. Before considering the "gap" between author and narrator, we should remember how, as readers, we respond to the narrator's perspective, especially when that voice belongs to a character who, like Nick, is an active participant in the ...
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ears in this world and we have to see him as reliable if we are to proceed with the story's development.
In The Great Gatsby, Nick goes to some length to establish his credibility, indeed his moral integrity, in telling this story about this "great" man called Gatsby. He begins with a reflection on his own upbringing, quoting his father's words about Nick's "advantages", which we could assume were material but, he soon makes clear, were spiritual or moral advantages.
Nick wants his reader to know that his upbringing gave him the moral fibre with which to withstand and pass judgment on an amoral world, such as the one he had observed the previous summer. He says, rather pompously, that as a consequence of such an upbringing, he is "inclined to reserve all judgments" about other people, but then goes on to say that such "tolerance . . . has a limit".
This is the first sign that we can trust this narrator to give us an even-handed insight to the story that is about to unfold. But, ...
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judged by how well they stand up to his own virtues.
Nick leaves the mid-West after he returns from the war, understandably restless and at odds with the traditional, conservative values that, from his account, haven't changed in spite of the tumult of the war. It is this insularity from a changed world no longer structured by the values that had sent young men to war, that decides him to go East, to New York, and learn about bonds.
But after one summer out East, a remarkable summer for this morally advantaged young man, he "decided to come back home" to the security of what is familiar and traditional. He sought a return to the safety of a place where houses were referred to by the ...
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"Great Gatsby 3." Essayworld.com. January 20, 2007. Accessed April 27, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Great-Gatsby-3/59004.
"Great Gatsby 3." Essayworld.com. January 20, 2007. Accessed April 27, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Great-Gatsby-3/59004.
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