In a letter to his friend, F. Scott Fitsgerald once wrote that “[o]f all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what [The Great Gatsby] was about” (Fitzgerald, NP). Of course, these words spark passionate dialogue from all sides of the aisle. In Fitzgerald’s time, The Great Gatsby was, as one review put it, “a dud” (Melville House, NP). Now, though, you can’t make it through high school without first reading the novel and hearing your English teacher sing its praises…but why? Why is it that we now find ourselves enraptured with Fitzgerald’s writing, while earlier reception was lukewarm at best? What fundamental misunderstanding was there to cause this divide? One character in particular continues to take up space in my mind: Nick Carraway. Without his flawed narration, I don’t believe the novel would have the level of depth it has now. The Great Gatsby’s reputation as a classic American novel endures because F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of Nick Carraway’s limited and unreliable point of view creates an engaging multi-layered narrative.
Nick Carraway is a deeply insecure person, not only emotionally, but from a deeply fundamental part of his character. He begins the novel by going through great lengths to detail his self-purported honesty and open-mindedness, going so far as to say he is one of few truly honest people he knows in the world. “I am inclined to reserve all judgments,” he declares while in the same paragraph delivering judgemental critiques on the “suppress[ed]” nature of what are supposedly his friends (Fitzgerald, 1). It’s obvious Nick views himself as a bastion of moral integrity, but in his attempt to place himself above his colleagues it becomes clear that there are some real inconsistencies between the world around him and how he sees it. It will become apparent that, although he possesses this trait, it surprisingly does not bar him from participating in the same events and interacting with the same people he continuously declares he holds contempt for.
Additionally, it is shown throughout the book that Nick is a seemingly unwilling observer at his core. He introduces readers to his abnormal ability to attract even unwanted trust from others to share their most “intimate revelations” with him (Fitzgerald, 1). This is one claim Nick stays true to; the one time Nick writes about his day-to-day activities, he mentions that he routinely passes by protests happening. His role in the story is not one of action, but of passive observation and criticism. His inactive nature combined with his inconsistent narration lays the foundation for a deeply compelling story.
The way The Great Gatsby was written, Nick is recounting his entire experience several months (at least) after the events actually took place. This may not seem that consequential, but it is important to note that Nick is drafting his analysis on both the narrative and its characters with the benefit of hindsight. Consider his portrayal of his relationship to Tom and Daisy Buchanon: throughout the story, Nick is shown to be enmeshed in their world. From their first meeting onward, he participates in the social niceties, is seemingly charmed by Daisy, and does not fight against Tom’s brutally assertive nature. However, in his reflective retelling of these moments, Nick emphasises these characters’ worst qualities, for better or for worse. Tom is violent, Daisy is self-centered, and they are both reduced to “careless people” (Fitzgerald, 9). There is an added layer of irony to these statements when taking into account the passively detached man who is writing them.
Nick’s unassertive nature and superiority complex often manifests as a disregard for both serious conflict and situations that do not interest him. When describing Gatsby’s parties, Nick writes at length about the atmosphere–even going as far as to say that even the air itself was “alive with chatter and laughter” (Fitzgerald, 3). Contrastingly, his account of the Valley of Ashes is best described in his own words: “unprosperous and bare” (Fitzgerald, 2). In conjunction with his avoidance of protests when on his own, there is a clear difference when comparing the way he describes the lower-class environment of George and Myrtle Wilson to the elaborately crafted imagery and figurative language used to portray Gatsby’s lavish parties (that he criticises in the very same breath–he can’t let people know he enjoys what he sees as wasteful). Even in his emotionally detached state, Nick seems to be endlessly fascinated by extravagance and bored by real-world struggle.
Nick Carraway is, in essence, the reader’s eyes into the story of The Great Gatsby. His point-of-view becomes our point of view. This also means that any sort of cognitive dissonance or bias presented in Nick’s personal insights have a much easier time both shaping the story itself and embedding into the perception of the reader. Take Jay Gatsby: veteran, socialite, … gangster? The way Nick portrayed him, Gatsby was a naive idealist easily tricked by his own aspirations–a construct of a man made by a seventeen-year-old. He writes at length about Gatsby’s smile of “eternal reassurance” and the “gay time” he had at his parties, while quickly brushing over the more unscrupulous parts of Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 3). While still somewhat critical, this depiction is nothing short of the same idealism Nick criticized Gatsby for.
In reality, Jay Gatsby is nothing short of a criminal and a scam artist. Even though direct mentions of his criminal activity is slim-to-none, anecdotes from Meyer Wolfsheim–a man Nick has no qualms calling a criminal–and the Chicago phone-call Nick answers in chapter 9 cement it. There are also many other more subtle details that put Gatsby outside the law. The presence of Englishmen at Gatsby’s parties that Nick was “sure[…]were selling something, bonds or insurance or automobiles” shows one important thing: the purpose of Gatsby’s parties was solicitation (Fitzgerald, 3). In the same chapter, Owl Eyes states that “most people were brought” to Gatsby’s parties. It’s easy to extrapolate the surface-level implication of the statement: Nick was not brought, therefore he is special. However, it takes a more in-depth reading of the book to understand that the reason most people were brought to be sold to.As much as he says otherwise, Nick as a character is simply too engrossed in the sentimentality of the past to accurately tell a story free from his own emotion. The last paragraphs of the book are quite indicative of his mental and emotional dissonance, containing a myriad of oxymorons–most notable being his comparison of humanity to “boats against the current” of the past (Fitzgerald, 9). For all Nick’s criticism of Gatsby for wanting to repeat the past, all of these statements in conjunction with his retrospective negativities suggest an inability to move forward; he is simultaneously nostalgic for and haunted by the past. Considering how unreliable Nick’s reflections are, it is tremendously easy to misread the text and miss important contextual elements. These readings invite further conversation about what is fact and what has been tainted by Nick’s nostalgia; these conversations spark more conversations, and so on. Nick Carraway’s perspective provides a story within a story–a story of America’s corruption and a man too willfully ignorant and stuck in his ways to do anything about it told in parallel. The novel’s dependence on Nick Carraway is the core reason The Great Gatsby continues to be called the “Great American Novel.”
