Deception: the act of causing someone to accepts as a true or valid what is not true or invalid. F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes many writing techniques to create a unique style and also to draw the reader to the novel. One of the better known ones by high school students is The Great Gatsby; The story of a wealthy man, Jay Gatsby and his long lost love Daisy Buchanan. Many of the characters of this book are quite deceptive, such as the unreliable narrator Nick Carraway.
Nick Carraway, is from minnesota but moves to New york in 1922. In New York he lives in West Egg district; West Egg is a wealthy society with high social connections. Nick has lives by a very wealthy soldier named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby throws parties with famous celebrities to impress the Daisy Buchanan. Nick is not like the others who live in West Egg- he went to Yale and has other social ties with people in East egg.
Nick and Daisy Buchanan are cousin, and her husband, Tom, were classmates at Yale. Daisy and Tom, as a couple, introduce Nick to a beautiful woman names Jordan Baker, who he begins to have romantic feelings for.
Nick is the narrator in the The Great Gatsby; but he is very unreliable because he is a hypocritical non-judgmentalism. When he was younger his father said to him: “whenever you feel like criticising anyone just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.
” Nick goes on to say that how he he a normal mind, unlike others. Nick tells about how the people of West egg exploit each others trust in hopes of getting what they want. All the people in the novel want to attain happiness and are not concerned with the consequences; yet this only leads to temporary satisfaction. Because Nick is the narrator, a readers knowledge is biased, there is a little truth in his storytelling, even though he is judgmental and narrow minded. He credits himself for being the most honest person, he is not only lying to the reader but to himself as well; he constantly demonstrated throughout the book that he is deceiving himself subconsciously.
The ideas of deception and hypocrisy raised by Fitzgerald and intriguing at and disturbing. Most of today’s society practices these in their own relationships to some extent, but is unwilling to admit it. Thus being socially acceptable raises mixed fillings in a reader or anyone in general. Humans would rather not deal with feelings or actions that are uncomfortable, making it much easier to accept what society says is truthful.
Deception in The Great Gatsby. (2022, Mar 08). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/deception-in-the-great-gatsby/