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The Great Gatsby As A Narrator Essay

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To what extent can we trust Nick as a narrator?
Nick, as a narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’ can be seen as reliable and unreliable in certain instances, depending on the situation and his state. For example, his level of intoxication at certain points in the novel could suggest some underlying unreliability whereas the novel is mostly from his perspective so, as a reader, we are inclined to believe the point of view that is coming from Nick.
As we known from the latter chapters in the novel, Gatsby goes by a false name as such since he was originally ‘Gatz’ and not ‘Gatsby’. That is why the title of the novel is rather ironic as ‘The’ suggests originality and ‘Great’ suggests someone who was especially significant. Gatsby was not necessarily either of those things if you take away Nick’s perception of him. Nick describes him as having ‘something gorgeous about him’ and goes into great detail about his smile in chapter three. Because of just the title being based on a sense of falsehood, it starts to create a doubt in the reader’s mind as to what …show more content…

The parties highlight the Jazz age as they make it seem real. Fitzgerald has used the fast pace of the three in the earlier chapters to represent the quick change in Nick’s personality as he is influenced by new people he meets. For example, he is still gullible enough to believe most things that Gatsby tells him due to romanticising him but he has been corrupted morally by the parties and the vulgar lifestyle brought through by the Jazz and prohibition age. The reader is mostly only allowed to see things from Nick’s perspective or Jordan Baker’s in chapter four. Nick is inclined to believe and forward the information that Jordan puts forward to him which is unreliable enough as it is. We know that Jordan cheats at golf and is generally an unreliable character so her perception and the information Nick gets from her isn’t necessarily likely to be

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