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The Role Of Nick The Perfect Narrator In The Great Gatsby

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Humans are not built for precision; nor are they built for perfection. Their eyes can deceive them and their memories can be distorted. F. Scott Fitzgerald toys with this idea of a perfect narrator, more specifically, in Nick Carraway. Fitzgerald portrays Nick as the pseudo author and an unbiased observer. However, Nick is anything but perfect. In fact, he is rather unreliable in his narration of The Great Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Nick shows the readers the facets he possesses that reveals his imperfections: firstly; his dishonesty, secondly; his immense bias for Gatsby, and thirdly; he is a human. To begin, Nick shows the audience that he is a dishonest narrator. He commences his narrative by insisting that he is, “inclined to reserve all judgements” (Fitzgerald, 5). However, he continues the novel by providing his own personal characterizations of the other characters. For example, as he is reunited with Daisy, he criticizes her laugh by calling it, “an absurd, charming little laugh” (9). Furthermore, Nick reveals to the audience that the foundation of his own family lineage is that of a dishonest one, “My family …show more content…

Ultimately, it’s impossible for Nick to be perfect because humans aren’t. He is trapped by the chain known as DNA the same way Gatsby is trapped by the essence of Daisy (The American Dream). Because of this, Nick is bound to make mistakes and to forget things. These sole reasons, along with the prior arguments, prevent Nick from achieving the title of ideal narrator. One of these mistakes that Nick does is getting drunk at Tom and Myrtle’s New York apartment. The fact that he got drunk shows the audience that he can be easily manipulated (a quality that can be problematic for a narrator because they must be consistent), “I have only been drunk twice in my life the second time was that afternoon" (29). Therefore, Nick is clearly not a perfect narrator because his nature denies him

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