Essay On Nick Carraway In The Great Gatsby

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In his renowned book, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald achieves one of his greatest technical inventions in the form of the narrator Nick Carraway, a character who embodies a critical, moral judgment that contrasts sharply with the wild and crude/despicable personalities of Gatsby’s world, a world choked by the arrogant rich and exploited by the party-going crowd. Through Nick’s observations, the reader explores both the struggles and the aspirations of the mysterious Gatsby, a strangely anti social figure with a tragic past and a hopeful dream. According to his own words, Nick is a person “inclined to reserve all judgment” (1). He is desperately honest, and goes to great lengths to try to prove that he trustworthy. However, despite numerous attempts to convince the audience otherwise, he is not a reliable narrator, for the former claim does not hold true. In the beginning of the book, when Nick is first introduced, he gave an anecdote concerning the advice he received from his father. Nick claims to have been taught to not critic others. Being from a wealthy and well-established family, he had enjoyed privileges that countless others could not. Therefore, “all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that [he has] had” (1). However, it is soon apparent as the story progresses that Nick expresses strong opinions about the characters he meets. Tom is mean, Daisy is shallow, Jordan is dishonest, Myrtle is wild, George is empty and spiritless. Throughout the book, Nick develops a sense of detest towards the party goers like Klipsringer who show up uninvited at Gatsby’s house to drink his liquor. When Nick is finally invited to one of the parties, he emphasizes that he “had been actually invited” (41) in an almost surprise... ... middle of paper ... ...f the book, Nick starts out by telling the reader that his family is a well-established and wealthy one. However, in page 19, when Daisy and Tom Buchannan asked about his engagement, he said that he does not have any plans for marriage because of his lack of money. Regardless, he refuses the Gatsby’s employment offer because of his own pride and humility. Ultimately, the inconsistencies in Nick’s narration make him an unreliable narrator. However, Fitzgerald creates Nick this way on purpose in order to create an intensified sense of mystery. Oftentimes, Nick is confusing by design. The use of an unreliable narrator engages the audience and encourages the reader into seeking out the truth. Because of the systematic use of confusion in The Great Gatsby, the plot structure develops in such a way that major details are not revealed until the latter half of the book.

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