Nick as a Foil Makes Gatsby Seem Heroic

[Monty J]

As narrator, Nick Carraway is like a filtered lens; what HE sees and the way he sees it shape the readers' perception. Or perhaps DE-ception. Everyone has a public persona and a private one that isn't as well polished--Jay Gatsby included.

Everyone has blind spots. Nick is no exception, and the things he doesn't pay much attention speak volumes about who Jay Gatsby really is. And therein lies a deeper meaning to this quintessential novel about America. It is a satire of capitalism, not a tribute to it.

Everything Gatsby says should be open to question because he's lied about so much: his name, his family history, his initial shading of the truth about being "an Oxford man," his "old sport" affectation.

Dark rumors about Gatsby's background and the owl-eyed man's exposure of the library of impressive new books that haven't been read were the first clues of a facade.

Gatsby's low character shows when he dated Daisy five years earlier, exploiting her by allowing her to believe he was from a family on par with hers financially in order to seduce her.

Nick overlooks all of this. But shouldn't an objective reader be more circumspect?

Remember the scene in Gatsby's new yellow car on the way to town where he's grooming Nick to exploit his family relationship with Daisy? He shows a photo that could have been faked; he says he's from old inherited wealth; then he avows to be a war hero and pulls a frat boy trick flashing a war medal anyone could have bought at a pawn shop and had engraved.

And yet Nick bubbles over with admiration, enamored perhaps, and never attempts to corroborate what Gatsby says, when a reasonable man would have checked Gatsby out before exposing a family member to possible risk.

Readers should have been tipped-off about Nick's lack of reliability in all things Gatsby by the near worshipful way he describes him from page one. And yet so many of us swallowed Nick's tainted view until the very end.

There was no corroboration of Gatsby's accusation that Daisy was behind the wheel, and yet we take the word of a confirmed liar and con artist because it supports Nick's biased vision of Gatsby as a hero. For an unbiased reader, the missing corroboration infers that Gatsby is lying about Daisy being the driver.

Fitzgerald could have had a witness corroborate a man was driving the death car. He chose not to. With a mere few lines Fitzgerald could have had Daisy thank Gatsby for taking the fall for her. He chose not to. How are we to interpret this deafening silence on the author's part except as a clue that Gatsby was lying to polish his hero image for Nick?


That Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy as a trophy signifying his rite of passage into the cream of society was made clear in the climactic hotel scene in sweltering heat. But Nick, along with many readers, misinterprets Gatsby's passion as love. In the same scene, Daisy comes out of her trance and rejects Gatsby, earning sympathy for Gatsby in Nick's mind and the reader along with him. But shouldn't this be the moment for readers to come out of their trance as well?

Why do so many readers accept the word of Gatsby the con man? Because we see him through the warped vision of Nick, who's been swept away, more so even than Gatsby's legion of party-goers. "He threw dust in your eyes just like he did Daisy," Tom Buchanan said.

If an essential part of Nick's role as narrator is that of a foil, to set readers up for being fooled so that we can wake up at the end to the destructive superficiality and false promises inherent in capitalistic greed, he has succeeded, at least for some of us.

"Gatsby? What Gatsby?" encapsulates this entire book.


If Gatsby symbolizes the "American Dream," the seductive allure of capitalism, Nick can represent the masses who are seduced by the self-inflated promise of wealth and opportunity and the clouded vision inherent in the corruption of the Roaring Twenties' run-up to the Great Depression.

Nick is a foil because he makes Gatsby appear heroic with adulatory descriptions while "tarnishing" his own image by confessing a homosexual tryst with McKee. Nick skews the reader's perception of Gatsby, suppressing and disregarding his character defects, causing the reader to overlook Gatsby's corruption. Because Gatsby is seen only through Nick, the reader gets seduced by the hero's ostentation, his rags-to-riches trappings of materialistic success--the American Dream come true.

Yet America's history is littered with tainted fortunes: Ivan Boesky (insider trading), Michael Milken (junk-bond king), Charles Keating (S&L Crisis), Kenneth Lay (Enron), Bernard Madoff (securities fraud) ... .

How many readers were infatuated with Gatsby, "carried away" by Nick Carraway?

Part of Nick's task as an unreliable narrator is to present the reader an amplified and polished interpretation of Gatsby so the seemingly heroic character would personify the seduction often lurking beneath the veneer of materialistic success--a pattern that keeps repeating.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

[Karen]

Good one! Your comments here IS the reason why I love this book.

[Bruce]

Very nice! I need to think about this more.

[Silverpiper]

I always thought Nick was in love with Gatsby and that colored his perception of him.

Gatsby seemed to be more obsessed with Daisy than in love with her. If Daisy had run over Myrtle taking the blame for it would have bound him to her permanently even as he was losing her: obsession completed.

I also saw a lot of Fitzgerald in Gatsby. There's a duality there. Gatsby tearing at his clothes in a rage because he can't figure out how to be accepted by those people but in the end still scheming to remain in Daisy's orbit.

Fitzgerald was obsessed with the wealthy lifestyle even while he dumped vitriol on it. The classic love/hate relationship. He would remain obsessed to the end.

Who was Gatsby? Indeed, who was Fitzgerald?

[Monty J]

Silverpiper wrote: "I also saw a lot of Fitzgerald in Gatsby. There's a duality there. Gatsby tearing at his clothes in a rage because he can't figure out how to be accepted by those people but in the end still scheming to remain in Daisy's orbit.

Fitzgerald was obsessed with the wealthy lifestyle even while he dumped vitriol on it. The classic love/hate relationship. He would remain obsessed to the end.

Who was Gatsby? Indeed, who was Fitzgerald?"

Indeed.

Perhaps there was a lot of Fitzgerald in both Gatsby and Nick.