Role Of Nick Carraway As The Narrator In The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway serves as the narrator in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. There is some argument, however, over whether Nick is truly a character in the novel, or if he is instead a simply narration device. First off, Nick has a past that the reader is aware of. Readers know that he was in the war and that he is from the Midwest where his family does fairly well for themselves. The readers are aware that Nick has travelled east to New York to learn the bond business and that his father is funding him for a year while he gets on his feet. Characters are given backstories. Narrators typically are not. This is the first piece of evidence that points towards Nick being a real and important character in the novel. Nick tells readers that he is an honest man—one of the few he knows, in

But Nick also tells readers that he has been drunk only twice in his life despite the fact that they are watching him become immersed in this new world of parties and champagne. The reader sees Nick drinking at Gatsby’s shindigs and with Tom at his various properties around New York. These are the first hints that call his reliability as a narrator into question. It also becomes clear throughout the novel that Nick has feelings and opinions about the other characters. He suggests that he may be falling in love with Jordan Baker. He quietly disapproves of Gatsby’s crazy plan to reconnect with Daisy and of Tom’s mistress. But at the end of the day, he seems to shake all of these feelings off and go with the flow. He does not tattle on the cheaters, so to speak. In this way he could be considered a simply narration device. But, in my opinion, these are simply signs of his lack of reliability as a narrator. Readers know that Nick truly admires Gatsby. He even goes so far as to tell him that he is “worth all the rest put together.” As a narrator and character, readers have no way of knowing