F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is told to the readers in first person by Nick Carraway. Nick is from East Egg, the poor area, and moves to West egg the rich area. He describes his life and experiences living in West Egg. It is important that the readers develop other perspectives alternative to Nick Carraway’s perspective. Nick proves to be an unreliable narrator because he is biased in his description of the other characters, specifically Tom, who he views negatively, and Gatsby, who he favors over everyone. Also, Nick is intoxicated during parts of his narration, which doesn’t guarantee the reader an accurate description of events in the story. Finally, Nick makes Gatsby’s death all about himself, solely focusing on his own feeling.
Nick is an unreliable narrator because his judgements of other characters are very superficial. He focuses mainly on appearances and flaws. An example is when Nick first encounters Tom Buchannan. He immediately judged Tom to be arrogant and aggressive. Nick mentions his “hard mouth and supercilious manner” (Fitzgerald,7). …show more content…
Gatsby was introduced as someone that Nick revered, whereas Tom was disliked. Nick described Gatsby as having “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in your life. It faced – or seemed to face the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour” (Fitzgerald,51). Due to this description of Gatsby being perfect, the readers picture Gatsby as inhumanly impeccable. Gatsby is a person who can have anything and if he wants anything he can get it. Nick is an unreliable narrator in this case, because Nick describes Gatsby as perfect, but Gatsby is highly flawed because Gatsby lies about his name. He also lies about his parents being from “West Egg” when they were actually farmers from “East
Nick is an unreliable narrator because his judgements of other characters are very superficial. He focuses mainly on appearances and flaws. An example is when Nick first encounters Tom Buchannan. He immediately judged Tom to be arrogant and aggressive. Nick mentions his “hard mouth and supercilious manner” (Fitzgerald,7). …show more content…
Gatsby was introduced as someone that Nick revered, whereas Tom was disliked. Nick described Gatsby as having “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in your life. It faced – or seemed to face the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour” (Fitzgerald,51). Due to this description of Gatsby being perfect, the readers picture Gatsby as inhumanly impeccable. Gatsby is a person who can have anything and if he wants anything he can get it. Nick is an unreliable narrator in this case, because Nick describes Gatsby as perfect, but Gatsby is highly flawed because Gatsby lies about his name. He also lies about his parents being from “West Egg” when they were actually farmers from “East