Nick Carraway as Honest Liar in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Daisy is telling Nick that she made the wrong choice in marrying Tom and that she is a fool for not waiting for Gatsby. Nick is one of the only people that knows this about Daisy and never shares it with anyone else. Nick Carraway is a terrific

character but is vital in the role of the novel. It is later that Nick realizes that he becomes twisted and that he finds no desire to associate himself with careless people like Tom, Daisy,

Why would such an honest character feel the need to remind the readers of his morality? Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby is not honest in the way he depicts other characters and feels the need to intensely assert his honesty in order to place himself above the other characters in the book. Nick tries to be neutral by being “Inclined to reserve all judgments”(1). He is found to emit information that could give the reader a better perspective to the story. Nick Carraway tells the story by putting himself in a better light. The Great Gatsby is told from a biased perspective and is limited as a result of Nick's opinion.

Nick is still, however, an honest and good man. He is not extravagantly rich, but unlike Gatsby he earned all of his high social connections fairly. He is rather disgusted with the East and it’s empty values by the end of the book. But he is still intrigued by it all, as he demonstrates through his relationship with Jordan Baker. He holds an almost subconscious

Daisy confides in Nick that she believes “the best thing a girl can be” is a “beautiful fool” which shows us that Daisy is unhappy with the shallow society of the 1920’s. This comment shows the reader’s that Daisy isn’t shallow and empty; she dislikes the impersonal nature of the people around her and wants her daughter to be a “fool” so she doesn’t notice it. This shows that Daisy does have morals and feels strongly for the people close to her. An aspect of Daisy’s character that could suggest that she is immoral is the possible promiscuity associated with her voice. Nick refers to an excitement in her voice that “men found difficult to forget” which

Before one can learn, one must be confused. It’s no surprise that a coming of age character starts out naïve and inexperienced. When Nick first introduces himself, he appears very innocent. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice,” he says. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had” (Fitzgerald 1). Nick naively claims that he is a man

She is just nosy and wants to get him involved with her friends. Nick assures her this is not true but she is not sure because she did hear it from distant relatives of Nick’s.

Without Nick, Gatsby's true colors would not be shown and his behavior would be left not pondered.  His presence from the beginning to the

The world that Nick recounts is full of idealizations. When Nick first encounters Jordan and Daisy, “They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house” (8). The women here sound like something out of a fairy tale. They come off as fantastical but are not as good of people as they may seem. Their false presentation brings up the lies behind everyone’s presentation. Gatsby, as well, is not what he presents himself as. He is said to be an “Oxford man” but only visited Oxford with Dan Cody. The façades are a part of society’s attempt to be something it is not and to present itself as something better than it is. The truth is that they are all, in their own ways, like Tom and Daisy

  In The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald presents a specific portrait of American society during the roaring twenties and tells the story of a man who rises from the gutter to great riches. This man, Jay Gatsby, does not realize that his new wealth cannot give him the privileges of class and status. Nick Carraway who is from a prominent mid-western family tells the story. Nick presents himself as a reliable narrator, when actually several events in the novel prove he is an unreliable narrator. Although Nick Carraway may be an unreliable narrator, he is the best narrator for the novel because he creates the correct effect.

However, the truth begins to shine through Nick’s own idealism when he begins to learn of the reality of the lives of the wealthy, and of the troubles even they must face. The first moment that Nick realizes the truth of the troubles that even the rich have their their troubles is when he first meets Tom’s mistress and Tom breaks her nose for repeatedly saying “Daisy”.This reveals to Nick that Tom, who

In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway functions as both the foil and protagonist, as well as the narrator. A young man from Minnesota, Nick travels to the West Egg in New York to learn about the bond business. He lives in the district of Long Island, next door to Jay Gatsby, a wealthy young man known for throwing lavish parties every night. Nick is gradually pulled into the lives of the rich socialites of the East and West Egg. Because of his relationships with Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, and others, along with his nonjudgmental demeanor, Nick is able to undertake the many roles of the foil, protagonist, and the narrator of The Great Gatsby.

As a main character we may get a different impression of Nick since we are now analysing his personality and how he interacts with the other characters in the story. We read numerous pronouns in the first chapter, ‘I’, suggesting that he is self-indulgent and pompous. For instance, once at Gatsby’s party, Nick only kisses Jordan Baker because he ‘had no girl’, conveying he only kissed her because there was no one else there. This makes Nick seem selfish and arrogant as he is only thinking of himself. To the reader, we

The truth is the main opposite of lies. Nick states that he is “one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (64). Nick believes that he is telling the truth in this statement, but others make take this the wrong way. In using himself as a testament to his statement, he is setting up the falsehood of himself always being correct. Instead, the story is told through his point of view, where his views are twisted by both love and deceit. The love is expressed through Jordan Baker, while deceit could essentially be expressed through the character of Gatsby. Gatsby lied to Nick about his past, and Nick only found out about Gatsby's past after Gatsby's father came to the funeral and told Nick about how Gatsby's name was really “Jimmy Gatz”, and how Gatsby had “always liked it better down East” (176). This was probably due to Gatsby knowing where Daisy, his long-lost lover, was. For instance, Gatsby knows exactly where Tom and Daisy live because of the green light at the end of the dock. How Gatsby found out, no one knows.

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald proves that Nick Carraway is an honest and reliable narrator. The author uses writers effect to portray how Nick is within and without, how he reserves all judgments and how he is honest.