Narrator Reliability in “The Great Gatsby”

Throughout his text, Abbot speaks of the reliability of the narrator as being one of the central manners in which the reader interprets a novel’s characters and plot. The narrator of The Great Gatsby is Nick Carraway, an individual so involved with the various characters of the narrative that his account itself turns into an impressionistic report. Because of this subjective story telling, one has a difficult time knowing how to feel about the characters themselves. Does Nick’s friendship with Gatsby shed a more positive light to his past exploits and personality? Is Nick’s perception of Daisy and Tom so personally biased that the reader feels they must dislike them as much as Nick?
This sense of unreliability compares almost identically with the narrator Nelly who recounts the tale of Wuthering Heights. Nelly served as maid for the Earnshaws and eventually Heathcliff himself. Many readers accuse Nelly of being too lax in her personal condemnation of Heathcliff’s actions, while being too harsh in her criticism of Catherine. Based on these observations, one may note that the reader may feel more inclined to have sympathy for Heathcliff and his broken heart, rather than for Catherine, even upon her death.
There are various reasons why Fitzgerald may have chosen Nick to be so involved with the other characters of the novel while also acting as the narrator. For one, it makes the story more realistic and lends it an air of credibility. How better to construct a seemingly practical and honest novel than to include a narrator with his own feelings and narrative himself? Another reason Fitzgerald may have implemented this type of narration is to present the reader with a realistic sense of memory. Throughout the novel, Nick holds vague descriptions of time, and presents openly questionable events as well as time gaps in his recount of Gatsby’s tale. For example, on page 224 of the novel, Fitzgerald alludes to a conversation between Wilson and Tom that was left out of the novel, and eventually led to Gatsby’s death. “’Tom,’ I inquired, ‘what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?’ He stared at me without a word, and I knew I had guessed right about those missing hours.” (Fitzgerald 224). By purposefully disallowing Nick to have attendance at this meeting, and then later bringing up the conversation in the novel, the reader is allowed to make their own inferences about the events leading up to Gatsby’s death. A commonly thinking reader will deduct that Tom Buchanan told Wilson that he was not the individual driving the yellow car, but in fact, Gatsby had been the one behind the wheel, which in turn caused Wilson to kill Gatsby.
Another noticeable gap in Nick’s account of Gatsby’s story happens on page 203, when Wilson terminally shoots Gatsby—or so it would seem; so our inferences tell us. The truth is, Nick was not present for this event, and in turn leaves it very open to our own interpretation of the events. “The chauffeur—he was one of Wolfsheim’s protoges—heard the shots—afterward he could only say that he hadn’t thought anything much about them…It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off the grass, and the holocaust was complete.” (Fitzgerald 203-204). Most readers would believe that Wilson shot Gatsby and then turned the gun on himself, crazy with the grief of his late wife’s death. Others may hold different interpretations of these clues. Perhaps Gatsby had fought Wilson for the gun, shot the old man in self defense, and then turned the gun on himself as a result of his deep sense of loss in regards to Daisy. It makes sense doesn’t it? Gatsby had always believed in the hope of that green light across the bay. Perhaps the loss of this hope was just too much for him to bear. These differing interpretations bring a sense of mystery to the novel, and allow the reader to hold a more personal interpretation of its events, which in turn lends it a more realistic air.

Judging “The Great” Gatsby

I think people judge us too harshly based on our past experiences. Is it not possible for people to change? Do the gaps in our histories shape the way others perceive our lives, or is it our present moral character that tells them who we are? Gatsby experienced the consequences of this dilemma in the novel, notably when Tom Buchanan was attacking Gatsby’s monetary wealth and the manner in which he acquired it. The fact that Gatsby was indeed a bootlegger in his past caused Daisy to reject him, despite his new prosperity, affluence, and apparent social standing.
The reality of this tragic situation caused me, as the reader, to feel a great sense of sympathy for Gatsby. I consider myself an honest person, an individual of high moral standards and agreeable personality. But would this change if people knew everything about my past? Would people think I was an honest person if they knew I poured water out of the bathtub when I was five and blamed in on my little sister? Would they believe I held high moral standards if they knew how many times I had given in to the temptation of peer pressure? Would they think I was pleasant if they knew I yelled at my siblings almost daily in my younger years? I consider myself an honest person with high moral standards and an agreeable personality. People judge us too harshly based on our past experiences.

The Great Gatsby: Symbolism or Self-Creation?

Fitzgerald is a literary magician. Over the labor day weekend he sent me back in time and up the Eastern coast to the New York of the 1920s, where I enjoyed the life of the upper class while also pining in its hidden sorrows, and felt the lamentations of troubled and secret lovers, ending with crumbled and broken dreams carried upon the vestige of death. His writing techniques were flawless, his prose beautiful, his narrativity mysterious.

One of the most outstanding examples of such obscurity in the realm of “Gatsby”, was Fitzgerald’s multiple references to the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, painted upon a desolate and fading billboard advertisement looking upon the valley of ashes. What do these eyes represent? Were they significant to Fitzgerald, or are they simply the creation of the imaginations of those characters in the novel who deemed them significant?

In chapter 2, the reader is introduced to these eyes as follows, “…Above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg… They look out of no face, but instead from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose… his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brook on over the solemn dumping group.” (Fitzgerald 30-31) Fitzgerald extends quite a bit of attention to the details noticed by those who have seen Dr. Eckelburg’s eyes staring upon the city of ashes. They must have significance to the plot, perhaps a foreboding quality extended towards those ill-fated characters who have traveled under its gaze? Perhaps it represents the eyes of God, watching upon those in reality, using the city of ashes as a metaphor towards the broader scope of the world. This is hinted upon by the grieving Mr. Wilson in chapter 8 of the novel, when speaking to a bystander about the circumstances surrounding his late wife’s death. “…and I said, ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’… Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night… ‘God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson.” (Fitzgerald 200-201).

So one must decide. Fitzgerald asserted that symbols only have meaning when one instills meaning in them. Were the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg a glimpse into the metaphorical ideals of ideology, or one of the most well-crafted puzzles in the history of literature? I’ll let you be the judge.