Great Gatsby

Great Gatsby


The Great Gatsby Essay: Nick Carraway

The Great Gatsby is a love sick book narrated by Nick Carraway. He lives next door to an abundantly wealthy man, Jay Gatsby, who happens to be hopelessly in love with Nicks cousin, Daisy. Nick knows all the character’s secrets and gets close to both Gatsby and Daisy. The whole story is a book written with Nicks details and perception of the matter. I believe Nick is unreliable because he tells the story in his own perspective, he has biased opinions, and he is very prejudice and judgmental.
Nick is an unreliable narrator because he tells his side of the details in his own mindset. The way Nick has told the story may not be what really happened due to the fact that he sees things different than others. When he tells certain aspects he is known to show only how he views situations. “Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and supercilious manner. Two shinning arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward” (Fitzgerald 7). Nick wants us to perceive the story from how he views situations, therefore putting his 1st person twist on it because he can shape them into however he views them. When he describes Tom, Nick wants us to have the same aspect as himself, thus, giving his personal opinion and wanting us to feel the same resentment he has towards him.
Nick may be viewed unreliable because he is biased, he shows favoritism to particular characters over others. “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in a life… it understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey” (Fitzgerald 48). We know how horribly nick talked about Tom, but he would constantly praise Gatsby in...

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