Unreliable Narrator In The Great Gatsby

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In the article “Gatsby and the Failure of the Omniscient ‘I’’” author Ron Neuhaus presents Nick Carraway as an unreliable narrator. Neuhaus presents Nick as an unreliable narrator because of his switch from first person limited to omniscient third person. He also states that Nick’s facts are not true because of the switch of his omniscient I, a term Neuhaus came up with to present nick as an unreliable narrator. However, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick is a strong narrator who knows so much through what other characters tell him during the novel. Nick is able to learn and express facts as he interacts with many characters such as Jordan Baker, Daisy Buchanan, and Gatsby himself. Nick is a reliable narrator because the…show more content…
Nick’s first interaction is with Jordan Baker, a young golfer and friend of Daisy, he comes to meet her at a party of Gatsby’s, after he was formally invited. Neuhaus claims that since Nick changes from his tone of first person limited to omniscient third person throughout the novel, he does not have a clear understanding of his facts. However, at Nick’s first party that he goes to in the novel, he meets Jordan Baker for the second time in his life. After Nick asks about the host, Mr. Jay Gatsby, Jordan tells nick dishonesties about Gatsby that have been rumors that she has heard. Jordan says, “‘Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once’… ‘it’s more that he was a German spy during the war’” (44) says another friend. Nick’s statements that he says throughout the novel are proven through what Jordan says to him at the party and later meeting Gatsby that night. Neahaus also says that Nick is an awkward character and is put in at the wrong times in the novel. Later in the novel, Nick can also be trusted and not an awkward character in the novel, but as a nice addition. In the car ride with Tom and Jordan after a heated dinner on the hottest day of the year, Nick is to be seen as a trusted…show more content…
Gatsby shows Nick how to live in the eggs, how to party, he entrusts him into his relationships, mostly with Daisy, and they become each other’s best friends. Neuhaus says in his article, “Nick literally chaperones what could be scenes of revealing intimacy between Gatsby and Daisy” (Neuhaus). Nick is chaperoning the events happening between Gatsby and Daisy, only because Gatsby has asked Nick to come. Nick is not peering in on their relationship, but merely helping them because of the relationship Nick has with Daisy, they are cousins who seem to be close and who get closer throughout the novel. Nick is only uncomfortable while doing this, because Fitzgerald makes the suggestion that Nick feels uncomfortable because he does not want to break up his cousin’s marriage. Throughout Nick’s uncomfortableness, he still makes the time and effort to help his new friend, Jay, get together with his cousin, Daisy. With Nick’s help, in Daisy’s and Gatsby’s affair, they are able to express their love for each other and are able to get a glimpse of what Gatsby wanted before he died. Without the completion of this goal Gatsby had, it would not have been completed without the help of Nick setting up all of the dates, proving Neuhaus wrong. Neuhaus said that Nick is an uncomfortable addition every time he is added into the dialogue, but Nick moved along the plot into something bigger by helping the affair move

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