Narrator in The Great Gatsby
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Truth: Nick presents Gatsby to the reader in a favourable light
Nick rrator
• Nick's narration raises questions about his integrity
• Narrating function （叙述职能） • Managing function （管理职能） • Communicating function （交际职能） • Attesting function （证明职能） • Judging function （思想职能） • ……
Narrators in The Great Gatsby
how the character views the
world
how the character views the
other characters
Why choose a first-person narrator?
sense of reality of the novel
first-person narrative:
accidentally appearing 偶然出现
• Implicit Narrator (“authorial” narrative) “作者
式”叙述
隐身叙述者
absolutely hidden 绝对隐身
（第三人称叙述）
(observer-narrator)作为观察者的叙
By: 赵毅衡
述者
Functions of “Narrator”
Nick Carraway: Unreliable Narrator
• Nick makes judgements throughout the novel Fantasy: "one of the few honest people I have known"
"inclined to reserve all judgements"
term used to describe a narrator who we feel we cannot trust. This uncertainty about whether the narrator is telling the 'truth' means that we develop a critical, questioning attitude towards him or her, and sense that there is a "distance" between the author and the narrator. • When novelists use a first-person narrator, we read that narrator's presentation of themselves and their world. Our instinct, encouraged by the intimacy of first-person narrative--the fact that the narrator is talking to us directly--is to believe what we are told. However, just as in real life, we need to be alert to the possibility that the narrator is not always to be trusted.
• Main narrator: Nick Calloway
• Nick keeps “inside” and “outside” of the story • Three functions by choosing Nick as the narrator: 1. To present the previous circumstances of the story to the
• “The narrator”=“the writer”? (e.g. A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man)
• In narratology,“narrator”is not a concrete person.
• When the narration is textualized, “narrator” becomes an abstract concept hidden behind the text, narrating the story or other narrative materials.
? Nick's personal life: ➢ He has run away from a relationship at home ➢ He has a “short affair” in New York but tells us
little about it ➢ He is reluctant or unable to commit to Jordan Baker ? Nick's different attitudes toward Gatsby and other
Can we trust the narrator?
• Nick's vision is not identical to Fitzgerald's, or at least to the novel's, for Nick is capable of being an unreliable narrator at moments that are crucial to the story's development. Indeed, in exactly the same ways that Nick may be a flawed character, he is also sometimes a confused, misleading, or inaccurate teller of his tale.
closeness in space
the direct speech: closeness in time
Unreliable Narrator
• The concept of the "unreliable narrator" was first
aired by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 work The Rhetoric of Fiction. As the adjective implies it is a
Simplest Process of Narration
text
文本
Writer Narrator
Narratee
Reader
作者
叙述者
受述者
读者
Narration
叙述行为
Classification of “Narrator”
Gérard Genette (热奈特) • Autodiegetic narrator 自叙述者（主人公叙述）
Reference：
王荣飞.《了不起的盖茨比》的叙述者及其叙述职能[J]. 文学评论.
Why choose a first-person narrator?
first-person narrator focus on
the feelings, opinions, and perceptions
of a particular character
characters
Nick Carraway: Unreliable Narrator
• Nick is deliberately controlling our response • Nick constructs his narrative from different sources
“He told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumours about his antecedents, that weren't even true.” • Nick's imagination about Gatsby's thoughts: "I suppose..." / "There must have been..." / "possibly"/ "perhaps"
Narrators in Great Gatsby
• Other narrators: Miss Baker; Jay Gatsby; Mr. Wolfsheim; Gatsby’s father.
• Functions: 1.The shift of narrators completes the plots; 2. Leaving a multi-dimensional impression of Gatsby and the story; 3. Creating an effect resembling “montage”; 4. Adding the sense of mystery to the story; 5. In addition, the varied voices represent different values in different class.
3. Why Choose a First-Person Narrator 4. Unreliable Narrator
Definition of “Narrator”
• [Definition from Oxford Dictionary]: A person who narrates something, especially a character who recounts the events of a novel or narrative poem. （？）
e.g. Great Expectations
• Homodiegetic narrator 同故事叙述者 Narrator-Agent 人物叙述eg. The Sound and The Fury Narrator-Witness 旁观人叙述者 eg. The Great Gatsby
• Heterodiegetic narrator 异故事叙述者
e.g. Mrs. Dalloway
Classification of “Narrator”
• Explicit Narrator
现身叙述者
（第一人称叙述）
Protagonist 主人公 (PE Narrative) （自身经验叙述）
Participant 次要人物 (Minor character) （旁观叙述）
“Narrator” in
The Great Gatsby
By Zhang Sijing & Mao Yarui
(Gaiety)
(Lizzie)
Outline
1. General Introduction to “Narrator”
2. The Narrators in The Great Gatsby
reader, making the distance between the narrator and the reader closer (the narrator’s eyes and mind become ours when reading the story. It seems that we witness Gatsby’s story together with Nick); 2. To link the characters in the story together; 3. To represent a different kind of value ( traditional Middle West principles and moral standards, which is between mind and matter, which are respectively represented by Gatsby and Tom).
Nick rrator
• Nick's narration raises questions about his integrity
• Narrating function （叙述职能） • Managing function （管理职能） • Communicating function （交际职能） • Attesting function （证明职能） • Judging function （思想职能） • ……
Narrators in The Great Gatsby
how the character views the
world
how the character views the
other characters
Why choose a first-person narrator?
sense of reality of the novel
first-person narrative:
accidentally appearing 偶然出现
• Implicit Narrator (“authorial” narrative) “作者
式”叙述
隐身叙述者
absolutely hidden 绝对隐身
（第三人称叙述）
(observer-narrator)作为观察者的叙
By: 赵毅衡
述者
Functions of “Narrator”
Nick Carraway: Unreliable Narrator
• Nick makes judgements throughout the novel Fantasy: "one of the few honest people I have known"
"inclined to reserve all judgements"
term used to describe a narrator who we feel we cannot trust. This uncertainty about whether the narrator is telling the 'truth' means that we develop a critical, questioning attitude towards him or her, and sense that there is a "distance" between the author and the narrator. • When novelists use a first-person narrator, we read that narrator's presentation of themselves and their world. Our instinct, encouraged by the intimacy of first-person narrative--the fact that the narrator is talking to us directly--is to believe what we are told. However, just as in real life, we need to be alert to the possibility that the narrator is not always to be trusted.
• Main narrator: Nick Calloway
• Nick keeps “inside” and “outside” of the story • Three functions by choosing Nick as the narrator: 1. To present the previous circumstances of the story to the
• “The narrator”=“the writer”? (e.g. A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man)
• In narratology,“narrator”is not a concrete person.
• When the narration is textualized, “narrator” becomes an abstract concept hidden behind the text, narrating the story or other narrative materials.
? Nick's personal life: ➢ He has run away from a relationship at home ➢ He has a “short affair” in New York but tells us
little about it ➢ He is reluctant or unable to commit to Jordan Baker ? Nick's different attitudes toward Gatsby and other
Can we trust the narrator?
• Nick's vision is not identical to Fitzgerald's, or at least to the novel's, for Nick is capable of being an unreliable narrator at moments that are crucial to the story's development. Indeed, in exactly the same ways that Nick may be a flawed character, he is also sometimes a confused, misleading, or inaccurate teller of his tale.
closeness in space
the direct speech: closeness in time
Unreliable Narrator
• The concept of the "unreliable narrator" was first
aired by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 work The Rhetoric of Fiction. As the adjective implies it is a
Simplest Process of Narration
text
文本
Writer Narrator
Narratee
Reader
作者
叙述者
受述者
读者
Narration
叙述行为
Classification of “Narrator”
Gérard Genette (热奈特) • Autodiegetic narrator 自叙述者（主人公叙述）
Reference：
王荣飞.《了不起的盖茨比》的叙述者及其叙述职能[J]. 文学评论.
Why choose a first-person narrator?
first-person narrator focus on
the feelings, opinions, and perceptions
of a particular character
characters
Nick Carraway: Unreliable Narrator
• Nick is deliberately controlling our response • Nick constructs his narrative from different sources
“He told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumours about his antecedents, that weren't even true.” • Nick's imagination about Gatsby's thoughts: "I suppose..." / "There must have been..." / "possibly"/ "perhaps"
Narrators in Great Gatsby
• Other narrators: Miss Baker; Jay Gatsby; Mr. Wolfsheim; Gatsby’s father.
• Functions: 1.The shift of narrators completes the plots; 2. Leaving a multi-dimensional impression of Gatsby and the story; 3. Creating an effect resembling “montage”; 4. Adding the sense of mystery to the story; 5. In addition, the varied voices represent different values in different class.
3. Why Choose a First-Person Narrator 4. Unreliable Narrator
Definition of “Narrator”
• [Definition from Oxford Dictionary]: A person who narrates something, especially a character who recounts the events of a novel or narrative poem. （？）
e.g. Great Expectations
• Homodiegetic narrator 同故事叙述者 Narrator-Agent 人物叙述eg. The Sound and The Fury Narrator-Witness 旁观人叙述者 eg. The Great Gatsby
• Heterodiegetic narrator 异故事叙述者
e.g. Mrs. Dalloway
Classification of “Narrator”
• Explicit Narrator
现身叙述者
（第一人称叙述）
Protagonist 主人公 (PE Narrative) （自身经验叙述）
Participant 次要人物 (Minor character) （旁观叙述）
“Narrator” in
The Great Gatsby
By Zhang Sijing & Mao Yarui
(Gaiety)
(Lizzie)
Outline
1. General Introduction to “Narrator”
2. The Narrators in The Great Gatsby
reader, making the distance between the narrator and the reader closer (the narrator’s eyes and mind become ours when reading the story. It seems that we witness Gatsby’s story together with Nick); 2. To link the characters in the story together; 3. To represent a different kind of value ( traditional Middle West principles and moral standards, which is between mind and matter, which are respectively represented by Gatsby and Tom).