Nick: An Unreliable Narrator in The Great Gatsby

Abstract

Based on theory of unreliable narrator, this paper, by analyzing Nick's function as a narrator, tends to point out that Nick's vision is not identical to Fitzgerald's, for Nick is capable of being an unreliable narrator at moments that are crucial to development of story. Indeed, Nick is a flawed character, he is sometimes a confused, misleading, or inaccurate teller of his tale. As spokesman of Jazz Age, Frances Scott Fitzgerald has reflected in many of his works social upheavals of roaring twenties and disillusionment of dream. His masterpiece The Great Gatsby which is highly praised by George Eliot as the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James (qtd. in Donaldson 268) has raised many critics interests since its publication. It is fact that many criticisms at home or abroad have touched upon this subject, but most of them are devoted to its theme, corruption of American dream, general style, symbolism used in novel and etc. Few critics have centered on its unique narrative techniques. Among all criticisms about it, Robert Emmet Long's The Great Gatsby---the Intricate Art and Matthew J. Bruccoli's New Essays on The Great Gatsby are comparatively most comprehensive, and yet they are respectively concerned with Fitzgerald's handling of time and space, and theme of love, money and aspiration that reappears in this novel. The narrative technique is not systematically analyzed, not to mention special function of Nick as a narrator. For years, traditional critics have taken it for granted that Nick, as narrator, is speaking for his author. Furthermore, because something about Nick's midwesternism seems deeply personal to Fitzgerald, critics have tended not to distinguish between narrator and his author. This paper, however, by analyzing Nick's function as a narrator, tends to point out that Nick's vision is not identical to Fitzgerald's, for Nick is capable of being an unreliable narrator at moments that are crucial to development of story. Indeed, Nick is a flawed character, he is sometimes a confused, misleading, or inaccurate teller of his tale.