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Role Of Nick Carraway In The Great Gatsby

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Nick Carraway, the protagonist in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, often functions as the guardian of the inconspicuous curtain between fantasy and reality, leaving his readers to test the validity and accuracy of his character in several situations. Delving into Nick’s complex character, it can be easily deduced that Nick withholds certain aspects of the story to shroud the reality in a cloak of mystery; however, he is also hasty in jumping to conclusions, thus emphasizing his unreliability. To begin, Nick embodies a unique role in The Great Gatsby because he is both a narrator and participant which inclines him to tell incomplete stories. For example, “Nick’s first meeting with Gatsby mixes reality with fantasy-- for Nick as well as …show more content…

To begin with, even though Nick claims to reserve explicit judgement on the characters, he still has a controlling voice which plays a major role throughout the novel. The most seductive voice in the novel, is not Daisy Buchanan’s, “it is Nick Carraway’s, whose voice is mesmerizing, like Gatsby’s con-man smile” (Lockridge 180). Lockridge emphasizes Nick’s dominant and enthralling voice to captivate and leave a significant impact on the reader as the events throughout The Great Gatsby unfold. Additionally, because Carraway has such a compelling voice, the readers are forced to take his existence into account. Not only does Nick serve as a vessel that Fitzgerald uses to narrate the story, but also is placed amidst the climactic plot-- “where he is and where he stands is as important to the story’s import as Gatsby… like Marlow, Carraway provides a moral center” (Eble 40). Nick’s mesmerizing voice and physical presence in the book urges readers to examine his presence in peculiar ways. This is another indication of how Fitzgerald manipulated scenes and excerpts of the novel to get the effects he wanted. To conclude, with the use of Nick’s unreliability due to his lack of self-constraint, the reader is forced to differentiate between reality and fantasy as Nick Carraway provides not only a

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Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, although the title of the story bears the name of Gatsby, we hear the story from Nick Carraway, making him the most important character in the story, through his growth, his beliefs and opinions, and his relationships. F. Scott Fitzgerald puts Nick Carraway in the center of the story, rather than Gatsby, through Nick’s narration of the story. Nick grows to understand the people around him more, and grows in his narration. Because he is constantly around people, he comes to understand them more and he comes to ‘mature’ over the course of the story. When we first are introduced to Nick, we see some advice that he got from his father a long time ago.

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In the captivating novel The Great Gatsby, written by F.Scott Fitzgerald, Chapters three and four have many differences that arise within the pages. The main contrast is Nick and Gatsby’s relationship. To begin, in chapter three Nick Carraway hears more rumors about Gatsby and gets to see his appearance. In chapter 4 however, he gets to observe his personality. In chapter three when Nick finally sees’s Gatsby, he says “ I could see nothing sinister about him.

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Chapter seven of The Great Gatsby is memorable due to its strong concentration of rhetoric. Rhetoric gives the audience a deeper read into a story, and in this case the story of Nick Carraway and his friendship with Jay Gatsby, a man who seeks to be reunited with his past lover Daisy Buchanan. Using characterization, figurative language, and concrete diction, Fitzgerald highlights the events of chapter seven to create a lasting impact to the audience. “She ran out ina road. Son-of-a-bitch didn’t even stopus car” (Fitzgerald 139).

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Despite the stories that went around about Gatsby, Nick looked past them to learn who he truly was. “He smiled understandingly… it was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced… the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself… I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care” (Fitzgerald, 49).

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In the supreme achievement of his career, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic use of rhetorical, literary, and stylistic strategies, such as dashes, breaking the fourth wall, and using colorful symbolism have been ever present. Whether describing the green light across the lake from Gatsby’s home to brief explanations of characters' motives directed directly to the audience, Fitzgerald’s style is easily seen. These stylistic choices and more can all be found on pages seven to nine in the first chapter of the novel. Here, Nick had just walked into Daisy and Tom Buchanan’s house. The mood is an awkwardly tense feel due to the presence of Tom and the long length of time that has passed since Nick saw his cousin Daisy last.

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