Saturday, April 13, 2013

Nick Carraway is the narrator of The Great Gatsby, but is he a good observer or is he an "unreliable narrator"?

Nick Carraway is an unreliable narrator. After he accuses Jordan Baker of dishonesty, remembering newspaper reports about her having been involved in at least one golfing tournament in which she may have cheated, he then refers to himself as honest. He says this about himself: 


Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. 


Not...

Nick Carraway is an unreliable narrator. After he accuses Jordan Baker of dishonesty, remembering newspaper reports about her having been involved in at least one golfing tournament in which she may have cheated, he then refers to himself as honest. He says this about himself: 



Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known. 



Not really. In this same passage that he notes his honesty and Jordan's dishonesty, he mentions a girlfriend back home he hasn't quite broken off with, despite a certain distaste he has in remembering a line of sweat like a mustache that would form over her upper lip and despite the fact that he is now seeing seeing Jordan. In not breaking off this prior relationship, he is dishonest to both the girlfriend and to Jordan. Yet he lacks the self-awareness to see this.


With Nick as narrator, we can't be sure we're not getting a skewed portrait of Gatsby--does Nick idealize him, despite the irony he reveals in depicting him? We just don't know. Likewise, we don't know if his dislike of Tom Buchanan seeps into his portrait of him. 


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