How Is Nick Carraway Unreliable

The Great Gatsby is considered one of the greatest works of American literature of all time. By looking through the eyes of the main character and narrator, Nick Carraway tells us his stay in West Egg and tells about his neighbor, which he dubs the “Great Gatsby.”
In the the story The Great Gatsby the main character and narrator is Nick Carraway, which is believed to be an unreliable narrator. It is clear he is unreliable because he lies to the audience, he is biased, and he intoxicated many times throughout the story. These huge faults of Nick make him an unreliable narrator and almost impossible to believe what he is saying.
Nick is an unreliable narrator in many ways, one way he is unreliable is that he lies about himself many times. For

Nick favors Gatsby over Tom tremendously. When we first hear about Tom, Nick describes him very vaguely and stereotypes again. “ Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward.” (Fitzgerald 7) However, when he describes Gatsby, he a very precise and only describes his smile: “It was one of those rare smiles with quality and eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in your life. It faced-or seemed to face to face the whole eternal world for an instant, and concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.” (Fitzgerald 51) This shows that Nick is very biased in Gatsby’s favor because he takes an entire paragraph to describe only Gatsby’s smile, while he describes Tom’s appearance and personality in a few

In chapter 2, nick gets drunk at Myrtle’s party. Which, made his perspective of the night was hazy and distorted, making it seem like no one was having any fun. Nick had said that his memory of that night would be hazy, and it seemed as if he drank just to tolerate everyone at the party. David O’Rourke, an English professor from the Centennial College said, “When an element of distortion is added, the challenge of perception becomes prodigious. Carraway is particularly susceptible to alcohol in The Great Gatsby.” O’Rourke agrees that since Nick gets drunk easily and often, it makes him an unreliable narrator. Lastly, Nick is very self-centered. An example of this is Gatsby’s death, in which Nick manages to make all about himself. He says, “...it grew upon me that I was responsible, because no one else was interested-interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which everyone has some vague right at the end.” (Fitzgerald 174) It is clear that he is self-centered because he thinks that because he took interest he killed Gatsby, which tries to make us feel sorrow for Nick and the Gatsby. Kent Cartwright, an English professor at the University of Maryland states, “But the story of Gatsby’s burial, ironically turns out to be not so much about Gatsby as it is