Abstract
That Nick Carraway supersedes his own creation, Jay Gatsby, as hero of The Great Gatsby is no starting revelation.2 Yet despite their imaginative bond, they are very different sorts of hero. For Nick’s achievement is subtle and complex, accomplishing what Gatsby cannot — sustaining a dream — while both recognizing the limitations of that dream and judging the social world that has destroyed it. A synthesis of disparate impulses whose roots lie in nineteenth-century romanticism and realism, Nick’s heroism is borne out in his assuming responsibility for Gatsby and in the act of narration.
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925) p. 36. Further page references appear in the text.
See Jerome Thale, ‘The Narrator as Hero’, Twentieth Century Literature, III, 2, (July 1957).
Arthur Mizener, The Far Side of Paradise ( Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965 ).
See Thale, and Robert W. Stallman, ‘Conrad and The Great Gatsby’, Twentieth Century Literature, I (April 1955).
See Gary J. Scrimgeour, ‘Against The Great Gatsby’, Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Great Gatsby, Ernest Lockridge (ed.) ( Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1968 ).
Thomas Hanzo, ‘The Theme and the Narrator of The Great Gatsby’, The Great Gatsby: a Study, Frederick J. Hoffman (ed.) ( New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1962 ) p. 289.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise ( New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920 ) p. 239.
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier ( New York: Random House, 1954 ) p. 115.
Marius Bewley, The Eccentric Design: Form in the Classic American Novel ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1963 ) p. 277.
In The Great Gatsby only ‘in Carrawa’s interpretation is the fullness of Gatsby’s dream recovered’. David L. Minter, The Interpreted Design as a Structural Principle in American Prose (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969) p. 186.
See also, Walter L. Reed, Meditations on the Hero ( New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974 ).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1989 David H. Lynn
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lynn, D.H. (1989). Within and Without: Nick Carraway. In: The Hero’s Tale. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19716-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19716-3_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-19718-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-19716-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)