The Great Gatsby Admirable

It is human nature to warp reality in stories and myths to gain popularity and appeal. Although Nick Caraway insists at the beginning of The Great Gatsby that both he and Gatsby are trustworthy and admirable men, his implications later in the book indicate that he may have left out Gatsby’s negative traits to boost his own popularity. Through portraying himself as the extraordinary Gatsby’s lone companion and leaving out anything that removed Gatsby’s prestige, Nick attempted to convince readers that Nick was admirable.
Autobiographers have the tendency to attempt to gain the support of readers before beginning the actual story. The narrator is immediately identified as “the good guy” in what should be a simple recollection of their life. Anything the author does and whoever he befriends are assumed to be trustable. In this way, when trouble arises at the climax of the book, the author’s bad choices can …show more content…
Nick Caraway, of course, is no exception to this motif. However, by reanalyzing the narcissistic traits of the first chapter, readers may come upon the astounding fact that the beginning of the book foreshadowed Nick’s entire viewpoint throughout the book. One of the first instances of this is when Nick claims “[his] family have been prominent, well-to-do people in the Middle Western city for three generations,” (Fitzgerald 3). However, later in the book Nick directly tells Gatsby he is not rich. Nick, in many instances, attempts to portray himself as the underdog by alluring to not being rich and well-off. However, if his family were as well-off as he first claims, it would make more sense for Nick to be fairly well-off as well. Nick says only a few pages later, “I always had the impression that he