THE GREAT GATSBY - CRITICS
George Norton - The Power of Narrative Voice and Point of View in Key Texts
• Keeping his [Gatsby’s] name clean by erasing the ‘obscene word’ scrawled on the steps of
Gatsby’s house
• Nick is also an excellent example of an unreliable rst-person narrator
Paul Staveley - Fear and Loathing in West Egg
• Most humans beings are inescapably alone
• In The Great Gatsby a desperate need to demonstrate control in a confusing world sees men
resort to childish petulance and primal violence
• Tom is trapped like a caged animal in his fear
• Like America itself Gatsby has lost sight of his original ideals and strives instead to reach a
place he has created in his own mind
• Assigning meaning to objects in a desperate attempt to make order out of chaos
• Creating an image of perfection so awless that her [Daisy’s] humanity is overlooked
Claire Stocks - All Men Are Created Equal
• The eponyms hero […] is a liar and a criminal
• [Son of] shiftless farm people
• Nick is not interested in revealing the real Gatsby
• Nick returns […] to nd ‘an obscene word’ scrawled on the step. Nick’s reaction is to erase it,
removing the word form the story as well as the step by not revealing it to the reader
• Makes sure Wilson has the wrong culprit” – interesting as its just as likely that Tom thought
Gatsby was the actual killer.
Bernard O’Kee e - Gatsby Revisited
• Novel is as much, if not more about Nick as it is about Gatsby
• [Nick’s] the novelist
• Impossible to guess what Nick is adding or subtracting
• To clea this set of misconceptions away
• We never know how much we should trust him
• More attracted to Gatsby then he is to the women back home, or to Jordan, or to the women he
has a short a air with
• Tanned skin drawn attractively tight on his face
• More aware that what we are about to see is an illusion
ff ff fi fl fi
George Norton - The Power of Narrative Voice and Point of View in Key Texts
• Keeping his [Gatsby’s] name clean by erasing the ‘obscene word’ scrawled on the steps of
Gatsby’s house
• Nick is also an excellent example of an unreliable rst-person narrator
Paul Staveley - Fear and Loathing in West Egg
• Most humans beings are inescapably alone
• In The Great Gatsby a desperate need to demonstrate control in a confusing world sees men
resort to childish petulance and primal violence
• Tom is trapped like a caged animal in his fear
• Like America itself Gatsby has lost sight of his original ideals and strives instead to reach a
place he has created in his own mind
• Assigning meaning to objects in a desperate attempt to make order out of chaos
• Creating an image of perfection so awless that her [Daisy’s] humanity is overlooked
Claire Stocks - All Men Are Created Equal
• The eponyms hero […] is a liar and a criminal
• [Son of] shiftless farm people
• Nick is not interested in revealing the real Gatsby
• Nick returns […] to nd ‘an obscene word’ scrawled on the step. Nick’s reaction is to erase it,
removing the word form the story as well as the step by not revealing it to the reader
• Makes sure Wilson has the wrong culprit” – interesting as its just as likely that Tom thought
Gatsby was the actual killer.
Bernard O’Kee e - Gatsby Revisited
• Novel is as much, if not more about Nick as it is about Gatsby
• [Nick’s] the novelist
• Impossible to guess what Nick is adding or subtracting
• To clea this set of misconceptions away
• We never know how much we should trust him
• More attracted to Gatsby then he is to the women back home, or to Jordan, or to the women he
has a short a air with
• Tanned skin drawn attractively tight on his face
• More aware that what we are about to see is an illusion
ff ff fi fl fi
