How Is Nick Carraway Unreliable

In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway's role as both narrator and character makes for a dishonest, unreliable storyteller. Besides Gatsby, Carraway is one of the few characters in the novel whose past and values are truly examined to see what kind of person he is. Also, Carraway can be seen as a somewhat unreliable narrator since he is a sometimes biased, active participant and has a history with almost everyone in the novel. Carraway’s growth as the novel progresses allows for the view of Gatsby and all characters to somewhat change depending on the time of the story. Overall, Fitzgerald's use of Carraway as the narrator for Gatsby's story allows for a dishonest, biased and judgemental character who is unreliable.

Nick Carraway describes himself as “inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.”, from which he learned from his father to not think of himself as better than anyone else (Fitzgerald 1). Even though he says that he does not judge others, in the same sentence he calls the stories that are told to him “boring”, hence making a judgment. This hypocritical nature is evident all throughout the novel and makes him an untrustworthy narrator as he will puts bias into his observations of others. In his last words to Gatsby, he says, “they’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together”, praising Gatsby while belittling and judging everyone else despite his initial statement that he doesn’t judge. Also, although he is not omniscient, Carraway admits that people often tell him about their own lives which he can use to allow the reader to make judgments about the characters. Since he is both a character and the narrator, the reader

As such, this makes the whole story somewhat unreliable as he tells the reader accounts from people who are dishonest. In Chapter 3, he says that Jordan Baker is “incurably dishonest”, yet proceeds to tell the reader the story of Gatsby and his love interest, Daisy, from her point of view in the next chapter (Fitzgerald 64). His lack of omniscience creates this ever-present bias in the novel as the reader will never get the whole truth from his attempt to tell the story. The novel is written two years after all the events took places, evident in Chapter 9 when Carraway says, “After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night and the next day, only as an endless drill of men in and out of Gatsby’s front door” (Fitzgerald 174). Since Carraway is only human, his position as narrator cannot be trusted as he may have forgotten some central details of the story, which would leave the reader lacking the information to make any sound judgments about the characters. This creates an overall effect of unreliability towards Carraway since he does not know everything about the story and tells the tale too far into the future to be a credible