A reliable narrator is one who documents a story with accuracy and precision, leaving out their own personal opinions, omitting no details and showing no bias. In The Great Gatsby, published by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925, narrator Nick Carraway participates in and records the story of a disillusioned Gatsby and his transcending of the class structure to win the love of Daisy. In spite of Nick’s declaration of a judgement-free character, he makes racist and classist evaluations of others for the sole purpose of glorifying himself. The pattern of self-glorification through the derogatory judgements of others is what makes Nick an unreliable narrator.
Although at first look Nick’s narration seems unbiased and factual, it is in actuality littered with phrases that are used to glorify Nick and his own social class. The …show more content…
But he immediately transitions to the negative aspects of the class, like the cruel dominance of the people involved: “and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch… It was a body capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body” (7). After attending one of Gatsby’s parties, Nick again makes an attack on the rich. In the list of the attendants of the party Nick writes: “And the Catlips and the Bembergs and G. Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who strangled his wife” (62). The name “Catlips” and the description of a brutal murder characterizes the corruption of the rich, which is exactly the kind of thing Nick wants to include in his story to glorify his own purity. Moving on from his degradation of the wealthy, Nick takes on the lower class. He accomplishes this in one stroke as he describes the setting at the beginning of chapter 2: “This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes
Although at first look Nick’s narration seems unbiased and factual, it is in actuality littered with phrases that are used to glorify Nick and his own social class. The …show more content…
But he immediately transitions to the negative aspects of the class, like the cruel dominance of the people involved: “and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch… It was a body capable of enormous leverage--a cruel body” (7). After attending one of Gatsby’s parties, Nick again makes an attack on the rich. In the list of the attendants of the party Nick writes: “And the Catlips and the Bembergs and G. Earl Muldoon, brother to that Muldoon who strangled his wife” (62). The name “Catlips” and the description of a brutal murder characterizes the corruption of the rich, which is exactly the kind of thing Nick wants to include in his story to glorify his own purity. Moving on from his degradation of the wealthy, Nick takes on the lower class. He accomplishes this in one stroke as he describes the setting at the beginning of chapter 2: “This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes