In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick’s unreliability as a narrator is blatantly

As a witness to everything that happened, the character Nick is a well rounded man who cares much about the close people in his life. He is good friends with Gatsby and looks up to him only to be disappointed by his actions, but this never changes there friendship.

Nick is a truthful man within a bunch of liars. Nick moves to New York to make his own money selling bonds. Tom and Daisy are both cheating on each other with different people along with Myrtle. Gatsby lies about his life to fit in with other people. Nick is the only one who does not lie to himself. Fitzgerald was truthful to himself, when he published books he did not say he was famous to fit in with other people. Nick heads east seeking his own fortune and not to be given one. Nicks moral sense is also like Fitzgerald’s, at the beginning Nick starts to interact with the others and is not like them at all. He is set off to be more practical, down to earth person. This is evident in chapter two when he does not know how to respond to Tom and Myrtle’s secret life. Fitzgerald was also a down to earth person who was realistic. He told his wife that she should stay with him because of an educated guess that he was going to make money off of his books. His wife did not go and cheat on him because he did not have money, she waited for him and eventually married

Nick is an unreliable narrator. He seems, from the beginning, to be level headed and wholly observant. However, he blacks out when he gets drunk, and we lose time. Also, he is deeply embedded and prejudices us against Tom and for Gatsby.

In The Great Gatsby, Nick’s perspective on others is much different compared to how he responds to Gatsby. Nick sees Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Myrtle, and Wolfshiem all self-centered and shady individuals who are lost in the time era. However, Nick is enlightened by Gatsby; he is interested in Gatsby and uncovering his inner realness since he recognized many characteristics that he wishes people would hold (Bevilacqua). In the first chapter of the novel, when leaving New York heading to the Midwest, he says that he has lost all hope for humans because they have seemed to have lost their morality (Will). Nick continues to say he is one of the few honest people he has met. When he meets Gatsby and starts to discover Gatsby’s emotions, he finds that Gatsby is different from all his other acquaintances; he’s true to his word and proves it all throughout the story.

Parents always warn their children to steer clear from shady and unreliable characters. Real life situations are the target of this notion, but such a claim also stands true for literature. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick, the narrator, is a shady character who disclosed no personal information about himself and expected the viewer’s trust in return. As a result, Scott Donaldson, in his article “The Trouble with Nick” deliberates his opinion over what a terrible person Nick is, however later determines that regardless of how shady Nick may be, he is still the only one fit to narrate The Great Gatsby. Some of Scott Donaldson’s views of Nick as an unreliable narrator may stand true; however, it is definitely agreeable that Nick Carraway is the only acceptable narrator for The Great Gatsby.

Gatsby’s wealth, sophistication, and handsomeness are admired by Nick which ultimately, develops into a friendship with Gatsby. Although Nick Carraway seems to be there every step of the way, Gatsby and his mystery makes it too difficult for Nick to save Gatsby from collapsing. “They’re a rotten crowd… You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”(154). Despite the fact that Nick claims he never complimented Gatsby, he only enables his false hope of being able to reignite his love with Daisy by giving him support. Nick never quite reaches the understanding that Gatsby isn’t the “realest” character in the novel, he continues to feel sorry for Gatsby throughout his struggles. Although Nick may not have realized that Gatsby quite possibly may have used him for Daisy, he continues to support Gatsby and continuously attempts to get Daisy and Gatsby

At the same party, Jordan remarks that Gatsby claims to be an Oxford man, though she does not seem convinced to his claim (53). As a result of all the various rumors, Nick creates an image of Gatsby in his mind as “a florid and corpulent person in his middle years (53).” Contrastingly, Gatsby appears to be around the same age as Nick, which leads to Nick’s failure to recognize Gatsby at the party. The rumors and stories influence the idea of Gatsby that Nick creates in his mind which differs from who Gatsby appears to be.

Fitzgerald chose Nick to narrate the text because his perspective creates a multifaceted view of the world Fitzgerald portrays. He is an outsider to the wealthy materialistic world in which he lives. His similarity to Gatsby in that respect helps us gain an appreciation for Gatsby’s character, but although Nick and Gatsby are both outsiders Nick fails to fully understand Gatsby. This appreciation but lack of full understanding gives the reader a very different perspective than a narration from Gatsby’s point of view or that of anyone else in the novel. Nick is caught between the perspective of the man “looking up and wondering” (35) and the man in the party. Gatsby is neither; he holds the party but then scarcely shows up. Far from being an outsider to the world of wealth and materialism, he seems to embody it. Gatsby and Nick both disdain the world of vacuous wealth, but they do so from different perspectives. Gatsby has everything he needs to be part of it and chooses not to; Nick is caught on the edge, unsure whether or not he wants that world, but ultimately he cannot have it. If Nick is an outsider unsure about trying to become an insider, Gatsby is an insider trying, studiously, to make himself an outsider.

During one of the key scenes in the novel in the ------ hotel, Nick, his narration and point of view once again allow more of an insight to Gatsby, which allows my admiration to grow. If not for Nick, and his input in the events, many people would see Gatsby as a sly shallow liar who invents stories merely to entertain acquaintances. Instead of this however, nick says,

He disapproves of Tom Buchannan’s affair and is disgusted with Jordan Baker’s lies and lack of consideration for other people. He alone shows disgust for the phony nature of the socialites and he alone has what they lack-personal integrity and a sense of right and wrong. However, Nick finds the fast-paced and fun-driven lifestyle of New York to be exciting. Nick’s conflict is repeatedly shown throughout The Great Gatsby and even though Nick struggles with it, by the end of the novel, Nick realizes that the sophistication and wealth of the East Egg is just a cover for the alarming moral decadence.

Scott Fitzgerald chose to tell the story of The Great Gatsby in a somewhat unconventional way by using a narrator that is a main character himself. Fitzgerald presents Nick in a specific way to serve a particular purpose. Fitzgerald uses Nick to demonstrate that people naturally judge others and that it is impossible for someone to remain completely unbiased when making these judgments. Usually, the sole purpose of the narrator is to give a medium in which to tell the story, but Nick tells the story and is involved in it at the same time. He has his own thoughts and feels different emotions throughout the novel and some of these emotions and feelings creep into his recollection of what happened. Because of this, the reader feels a stronger connection to him but at the same time, can be easily persuaded to have the same opinions as him about other characters. This also may be why Nick changed the most throughout the novel. He started out as a young man who is looking to make his fortune in the bond business out east but ends up moving back west because he is fed up with the corruption and greed that comes with the wealthy lifestyle of the east coast. At the close of the novel Nick says this about the eastern lifestyle, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy⎼they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is a story filled with love and loss. Love of people, love of things, loss of dreams, loss of innocence, loss of love… The Great Gatsby can be seen as a romance novel, or a tragedy, or possibly even a coming of age story for the narrator, Nick Carraway. His position as narrator of this novel shows how Fitzgerald wanted to keep the mythical and almost surreal nature of Mr. Gatsby. Gatsby has money, a high social ranking, extravagant parties, and a girl to dream about endlessly, whereas Nick exists almost in the shadows of Gatsby with no dream at all. Nick watches as Gatsby’s life changes and falls apart around him, and Nick’s opinion of him varies and fluctuates at times, but he was also the closest friend Gatsby had ever had. Nick illustrates loyalty, divergence, and a lack of ambition throughout his telling of the story, but he is in no way a static character. He is also human, and is flawed, and has kept his morals throughout life, making him the only character in the story who can really change at all. When Nick moved to West Egg, he probably did not expect to learn so much in the

We know that Nick is an unreliable narrator from the very first page of the book. He begins by telling us that he is the most honest person he knows, and that he does not judge anyone for any reason. However, one paragraph later, he says “Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”(1) He is saying that Gatsby is the epitome of

One thing that surprises me about Nick is that he was loyal to Gatsby who seemed likeable enough but empty inside. He seemed like the picture was more important than the real person. Nick was interested in person and would put himself in a bad light to help a friend. “I didn’t want to go to the city. I wasn’t worth a decent stroke

Although to Nick, Gatsby seems at once completely unoriginal, extremely knowable, being with him, he notes, was "like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines” (Fitzgerald 55). Gatsby, in Nick’s point of view, was disruptive. He is unable to trust Gatsby, for a fear that he would just vanish at the moment in which a promise leans toward its fulfillment.