I chose to re-read The Great Gatsby not because it was my favorite book, but because I feel like I missed the main theme and various symbols/motifs in the book. I'm a little farther than halfway and have already noticed one major thing that I will likely center my thesis around. When I read the novel for the first time, I accepted Nick as a reliable character and was willing to perceive the world and the characters in it through his eyes. However, a few of the annotated bibliography entries that I have done provided evidence that brings Nick's reliablility into serious question. It is easy to forget to challenge Nick as a narrator, as he speaks of himself as "one of the few honest people." He secures the reader's trust by speaking of himself as an honest man while criticizing the dishonest actions of other characters in the novel. For example, Nick seems more disappointed about the fact that Jordan Baker cheated in a golf tournament than about Gatsby's bootlegging or about Tom's affair with Myrtle Wilson. There are numerous other pieces of evidence in the novel that demonstrate Nick's near worship of Gatsby. He looks up to and admires Gatsby so much that it is evident that Nick as a narrator would be biased towards Gatsby. This explains why the reader perceives the ending as tragic and depressing, going so far as to even place a portion of the blame onto Daisy Buchanan. One critic, Leland S. Person Jr., argues in his criticism that Gatsby's destruction did not occur because Daisy failed to meet his dreamworld-like expectation, but because Gatsby's expectations were so high that there was no possible way that she could achieve what he desired. Gatsby did not only desire to recreate the past-he wanted to magnify all of the perfect moments he had with Daisy to an unprecedented proportion. Therefore, it's Gatsby's own fault that his fantasy was shattered. Nick, as the biased narrator, portrayed Gatsby as somewhat of a tragic hero and Daisy as an antagonist. Furthermore, Nick failed to learn a moral lesson from Gatsby's experience- recreating the past as it was simply isn't possible. After Gatsby's downfall, he resolves to "return west" in an attempt to return to his own past and re-live it. One would think that Nick would learn something from Gatsby's experiences, but apparently not. Nick's high respect for Gatsby and his inconsistency with moral values serve to undermine his reliability as a narrator. I'm sure that I"ll be able to find more specific evidence supporting these statements later on in the novel, as it nears the conclusion.
P.S- Nobody say anything about the fish award, I wanna keep it over thanksgiving break.
Well, I have to say, your desire to keep the award is fishy...anyway I didn't really like Gatsby(the novel) too much because I felt it too confusing. For instance, the part where they are all partying and suddenly he's in that guy's room in his underwear. That was just strange and made me have to focus on things I'd rather not. The Great Gatsby also seems to have the idea that the narrator can't be relied on, much like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest does. Since nearly everyone is going to write about the main theme in OFOTCN, I was also going to write about that in my paper. Well, they do say great minds thin
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