Critical Evaluation - The Narrator's role in F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is taken on by Nick Carraway.

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The Great Gatsby

Critical Evaluation

The Narrator’s role in F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is taken on by Nick Carraway.  In this role Nick reveals the character of the rich and mysterious Jay Gatsby.  Nick talks of the events in a first person perspective from a point two years into the future.  From this we know that Nick is displaying the story in an objective manner since the emotion of the summer has calmed down The Great Gatsby is a summary of the roaring twenties and an exposé of the lifestyle of the rich in the jazz age.  It tells the story of Nick Carraway, a young bondsman looking to make his fortune, his cousin Daisy Buchanan, her husband Tom Buchanan, a polo player and Daisy’s lover before her marriage the mysterious Jay Gatsby

Just before Nick’s meets Gatsby he sees him from afar looking over his party.  Gatsby standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes.  This reveals firstly that, although Gatsby throws big parties, he is somewhat of a loner.  Gatsby looks over his guests approvingly while unknown to him they are concocting wild and fanciful rumours about his past.  Gatsby is deluding himself that he is being accepted while he is actually seen as an elegant young roughneck, who only Nick sees the inner qualities of.

Through Nick’s narration we learn that Gatsby is, in public, very extravagant but in private he can be an incredibly shy person.  He doesn’t ask Daisy out after years of anticipation.  He asks someone to ask someone to ask HER out, using Jordan and Nick as proxies to shield him from rejection.  He doesn’t know what her reaction will be because he hasn’t seen her for years.  Gatsby considers his meeting with Daisy very important. We know this by pale as death, his hands were plunged like weights in his coat’s pockets and he was glaring tragically at Nick.  After he finally talked with Daisy he literally glowed.  His dream had come true yet his expectations were so high after years of anticipation that there was no way Daisy could live up to what he was counting on, since he had built her up like a Goddess with no flaws.  This is shown by Nick’s comment that There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.  

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Gatsby gets rid of most of his servants because he believes that they will gossip to the press about, what he believes to be, his affair with Daisy.  Nick visit him and we learn more about Gatsby’s past.  We learn that Jay was originally James Gatz, and he invented Jay Gatsby to impress a rich sailor and eventually made his money to impress Daisy.  Gatsby’s whole life is devoted to the acceptance of his peers and the love of his life, Daisy.  When Daisy and Nick visit Gatsby’s bedroom they find that Gatsby is not comfortable with his life. ...

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