The Great Gatsby Single Window Analysis

"Life is more successfully looked at from a single window after, all" (9). This quote describes how Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story. The story is told as if the reader is looking through a single window looking in upon the characters. The audience only sees the thoughts and emotions of Nick. They see what he experiences, which suggests that the whole novel is told in the first person. Nick is a unique yet good narrator because he has many positive characteristics, is associated with the plot, not directly involved with the other characters’ affairs, and the story is told strictly through him. Nick possesses many qualities that make him a great narrator. First, he claims that he does not

He is always near the action, but never is affected. When Nick is with Daisy and Gatsby right after they were reunited, they barely noticed him. Nick exclaims, “I look at them, and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life” (96). They barely even see him because they are so in love. This proves that Nick is not very involved. He leaves the two alone after realizing that they are so entranced with each other. Another example is when Nick kept all of his thoughts about the affair to himself. If he would have told Daisy, many of the problems would have been resolved. She would leave Tom for Gatsby. Then Tom could be with Myrtle instead of her tragically dying outside her husband’s shop. George would find out and move west with Myrtle. Nick keeps his distance; he starts as an innocent bystander but soon loses that. To continue with the themes of windows, Nick also sees himself in a distant window in chapter two. He stated, “Yet over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering” (35). Nick even sees himself as an outsider with this new found group of people. He does not belong and imagines himself as being a separate entity that is only in the presence of them. He does not have any emotional