Can Nick Be Trusted?

Nick, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous jazz era noel The Great Gatsby stands as a relatively reliable narrator. Though Nick presents his story along with his opinion, he is enough on the outskirts of the events to see clearly the implications of the actions of those around him. Nick writes of events in the past, which enables him to theoretically change his behavior as to be seen in a better light- but he allows his personal hypocrisies to be seen along side of the others- rendering him more human and relatable. In addition, Nick seems to have an eye for detail and a care for truth that the others around him lack; attributes that add truth to his story and gain him reliability in the eye of the reader.

Nick professes from the start that he is “inclined to reserve all judgments” (1), using this reservation to draw people’s stories from them; and in this manner he presents Gatsby’s story to us. Here, Nick asserts his reliability, acknowledging from the start that he is “privy to the secret grief of wild, unknown men” (1). These secrets are what the reader discovers- for though Nick may withhold judgment, he does not withhold the stories he is told. This compromises Nick’s honesty, just as his association with Gatsby, Tom and Daisy compromises his morality, but does not make him any less reliable as a narrator. The opposite is perhaps more true: as privy to secrets he has no qualms with revealing to us, he becomes more trustworthy as a storyteller.

Nick paints his story successfully to win the reader to his point of view- into liking Gatsby while disapproving of his criminal behavior; and to disliking Tom- but this does not strip away his image of truth. For Nick explains events and character traits while allowing his opinion to lie subtly underneath. The reader is drawn to feel for Gatsby- for his upbringing, his pining love for Daisy and for his unjust murder at the same time that they are led to see Tom’s dishonesty in cheating on Daisy and his careless nature in sending Wilson to Gatsby’s home. Tom’s attitude and the readers’ perception of him are already in place when Nick allows his opinion to sweep through- clearly asserting that Tom, Daisy and the others of their lifestyle “were careless people [who] smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (179). Here, Nick presents a strikingly accurate viewpoint, or judgment, of the Buchanans, but it arrives at the stories conclusion, after the reader has already reached a similar conclusion.

Nick has an eye for the details of people’s characters and a knack for drawing secrets out of those he meets- and he presents these tidbits of information to the reader throughout his story- making his narration more believable. Nick presents himself as a person who withholds judgment and proves this quality by waiting until the noel’s end to give the reader an exact interpretation of his view of his neighbors and family. He and the reader reach the same conclusions- but through the story- not because he tells us how to think.

Imagism

One of Ezra Pound’s most famous poems:

In A Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

is heralded as the most important poem of the imagist movement.

His poem strives to capture a moment in time; a snapshot image that captures complexity in its briefness. This glimpse into the everyday prompted my following attempt at imagism:

An Open Window

Echoes of the pounding feet
Pulsing down the silent street

Though not quite as powerfully striking a moment in my personal life, this steals a moment: when passing runners can no longer be audibly heard, but the vibrations of their passing are still familiar. Instead of following Pound into the visual world, this captures an equally important sense. It interests me that these moments or captured seconds revolve most easily around one sense. A poem covering and explaining an experience of many senses would almost break out of the simplicity of the imagist movement by focusing on two or more images in the same moment. And yet, this drawing together of images is exactly what I attempted in the second poem.

Pound was struck speechless by the faces of the metro; he had to stop, to reevaluate over and over again the moment he had seen- and he revived it over and over again until he was satisfied. In this vein, I decided to attempt a similar reevaluation; to break down a longer poem into a shorter fragment the same way Pound did.

Therefore the following poem:

Almost a Rose

blushing pink to softly herald spring
unobtrusive, fragile
she calls to me
a beauty on a bush
and slips her way into my grasp
plucked by an independent hand, and
she is mine
too lovely to leave behind.
I admire her
sweet scent
suede petals, velvet leaf
pearls of dew worn as a string of moons
tracing her thornless stem, curling through my fingers
timeless.
But another enters, unseen
announcing his presence with a crash
a wayward hip, a toppled pile,
tumbling; my startled hand closes
crushes,
sweet scent
and she bleeds in liquid color
a pale watermark stains my skin

was then cut down to these two lines:

Almost a Rose

Blushing pink of spring; plucked, crushed
A pale watermark stains my skin

And this poem, like Pound’s, focuses solely on the visual. The sweet scent, the loud crash, the suede and velvet textures which all help set the scene in the longer poem disappear when confined to a specific moment in time. The second poem is less striking than the longer version; I happen to prefer the scene set in the longer version, but the exercise is interesting by nature of its boundaries.