Nick is careful throughout the novel never to tell us things that he could not have known. If he was not present at a particular occasion, he gets the information from someone who was- from Jordan Baker, for example, who tells him about Gatsby's courtship of Daisy in Louisville; or from the Greek, Michaelis, who tells him about the death of Myrtle Wilson. Sometimes Nick summarizes what others tell him, and sometimes he uses their words, but he never tells us something he could never know. This is one of the reasons the novel is so convincing. It becomes apparent that Nick is an observer and narrator to the story rather than merely a character. He becomes our perception in this world. We have to see Nick as reliable if we are to proceed with the story's development.
Gary J. Scrimgeour questions Nick’s honesty, ‘Honesty in the end can only be based on some kind of powerful drive, and this is something that Carraway does not possess.’ Arthur Mizner views Nick as a reliable narrator and he holds a positive view of him. He understands how Nick is involved, as well as an onlooker, but doesn’t, as Scrimgeour does, take into account Nick as a character; rather he simply believes he is an unbiased narrator. I can relate easily to Scrimgeour’s view of questioning Nick’s honesty. Nick goes to some length to establish his credibility, especially his moral integrity, in telling this story. He begins with a reflection on his own upbringing, quoting his father's words about Nick's "advantages", which we could assume were material advantages, but were actually spiritual or moral advantages. Nick wants his reader to know that his upbringing gave him the moral fibre with which to withstand and pass judgment on an amoral world, such as the one he had observed the previous summer. He says, rather pompously, that as a consequence of such an upbringing, he is "inclined to reserve all judgments" (p 7), about other people, but then goes on to say that such "tolerance . . . has a limit"(p 7), which proves he does judge people. This is the first sign that we cannot trust this narrator to give us an even-handed insight to the story that is about to unfold. As we later learn, he neither reserves all judgments nor does his tolerance reach its limit. Nick is very partial in his way of telling the story about several characters. Mizner sees Nick holding a ‘successful formal order’ a mid-west and a more moral view, but I believe that Mizner does not recognise how narrow-minded Nick can be at times. Scrimgeour on the other hand, recognises this, but takes it to the other extreme, by commenting that Nick is confused and has the wrong impression of himself, as honest. He believes that Nick is an accomplice to the lies and is not very honest about himself at all, let alone the other characters that he is commenting on. I agree with Scrimgeour’s opinion on this point, as it is clear throughout the book that Nick chooses, intentionally or not, whether to judge certain people.
Nick admits early in the story that he makes an exception of judging Gatsby, because Gatsby had an "extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness"(p 8). This inspired him to a level of friendship and loyalty that Nick seems unprepared to extend towards others in the novel. Nick overlooks the moral implication of Gatsby’s bootlegging, his association with speakeasies, and with Meyer Wolfsheim. Yet, he is contemptuous of Jordan Baker for merely cheating in a golf game. And while he says that he is prepared to forgive this sort of behaviour in a woman: "It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame too deeply - I was casually sorry, and then I forgot," it seems that he cannot accept her for being "incurably dishonest" and then reflects that his one "cardinal virtue" is that he is "one of the few honest people" he has ever known. When it comes to judging women - or perhaps only potential lovers - not only are they judged, they are judged by how well they stand up to his own virtues. Though Nick participates in this story, it is not really ‘his’ story in the sense of being about him. However, it is ‘his’ story in the sense that it is of crucial importance to him: he defines himself in the process of writing it and reaches a stage of self-knowledge, as he recognises the immoral way that the east people live in and this repulses him and he shows his disapproval by returning to the west in the end of the novel. Indeed, he struggles with the story's meaning even as he tells it. Though Nick professes to admire Gatsby's passion as a lover and a dreamer, Nick's own actions in his relationship with Jordan Baker cast an ironic pall over his admiration: with Jordan, Nick is guarded, cautious, and sceptical. Overall, Nick suggests that Gatsby is an exception to his usual ways of understanding and judging the world, and that his attraction to Gatsby creates a conflict within himself, ‘Only Gatsby… was exempt from any reaction – Gatsby represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.’
Another function I believe Nick has in the story is to be the moral judge on society and people, as Nick judges people all the way through, even though he was said to reserve judgements on people. Nick is Fitzgerald’s mouthpiece and this is significant as he uncovers Fitzgerald’s view of society at the time. Mizner believes Nick is the judge and moral conscience of the story and so his final judgement of the story and its people is therefore reliable. He believes Nick has a strong character and maintains this good character and understanding throughout. I slightly disagree with this view though, as I believe Nick to be very partial in his way of telling the story about several characters, especially Gatsby and Jordan. Mizner believes Nick to have high morals, commenting on the statement Nick’s father had made to Nick, ‘“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone …. just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”’(p 7). He believes Nick has not forgotten this, as at the end of the book, he meets Tom and shakes his hand, ‘ I couldn’t forgive him or like him but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified …’(p 170). This view Mizner possesses, is arguable as Scrimgeour believes Nick does not want to cause trouble for himself and has stated that Nick had, ‘no nobler desire than to let sleeping dogs lie.’ As Scrimgeour remarks, the reader does not witness any sign that Nick had contemplated telling the truth about Myrtle’s death or that the problem had even been considered, which may influence the reader to believe Nick to be selfish and not want to cause trouble involving himself, rather than accept Nick as reviewing the words of his father. I oppose this opinion, as I view Nick merely believing that exposing the situation would be pointless and Tom and Daisy would not learn anything from the experience, as their lack of caring has already been long established. By Nick writing the book, it can be argued that he is being honest about what happened.
Scrimgeour believes that like Gatsby, Nick never realises the truth about himself and despite the lesson of Gatsby’s fate he fails to come to self-knowledge. It is clear Nick does not realise the carelessness in himself, but Jordan does. Scrimgeour believes this as Nick returns back to the West therefore returning back to the past, as Gatsby had, and so has learnt nothing from this experience. As a reader, I feel a little let down that Nick runs away from his experience in the East in much the same way that he has run away from that "tangle back home" to whom he writes letters and signs "with love", but clearly doesn't genuinely offer. I believe that this return home is like a retreat from life and an emotional regression on Nick’s part. Although I feel this, I can relate to the view Mizner has on this subject, as I do believe Nick must have learnt from this experience to be retelling the story and returning to the West may well be Nick merely showing his disapproval of the East.
I also believe that Nick is on a journey of discovery. The reader experiences this journey with him. Nick sees himself as ‘a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler’ (p 9). Kathleen Parkinson agrees with this statement and comments, ‘Gatsby’s first party creates, “a sea-change of faces and voices” (p 42), and here ‘sea-change’ maintains the metaphor of voyaging. Initially the East is a source of excitement to Nick; the city is ‘almost pastoral’ (p 30). Nick has moved East in search of excitement, money and change. He has done this in the same way Gatsby and others had done, but Nick notices the immoral attitude the East possesses and retreats back to the West, a contrast to the mistake Gatsby made, not to leave. Nick distances himself with what he cannot agree with and he can appreciate the full richness of life’s variety in his quest for experience, ‘I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.’ (p 37). Nick fills the role of ‘explorer’ of modern city life in the story, as he progresses through his journey of discovery, especially when he crosses the Queensboro Bridge, ‘The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world’. (p 67)
The Great Gatsby is Nick’s opinion. Gatsby’s dream and the purity of his vision is the ‘great’ part, rather than the wealth. In one sense, the title of the novel is ironic; the title character is neither "great" nor named Gatsby. He is a criminal whose real name is James Gatz, and the life he has created for himself is an illusion. By the same token, the title of the novel refers to the theatrical skill with which makes this illusion seem real.
Fitzgerald has created a most interesting character in Nick because he is very much a fallible storyteller. When an author unsettles an accepted convention in the art of storytelling by creating a narrator like Nick, it draws attention to the story as fiction. Ironically, in doing this, he has created in Nick a figure that more closely resembles an average human being and thus has heightened the realism of the novel.
