F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrates what Marie-Laure Ryan, H. Porter Abbott and David Herman state about what narratology should be. These theorists emphasize the importance of conflict, human experience, gaps and consciousness, among many other elements, in order for a story to be considered a narrative. The Great Gatsby shows these elements throughout the book in an essential way. This makes the reader become intrigued and desperate to know what will happen next. The Great Gatsby is unpredictable throughout the use of gaps, consciousness and conflict.
Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald’s narrator, relates Jay Gatsby’s story in a manner that is at once concise and indirect. These two qualities are not at odds with each other; in fact, the more concise one is, the more one must leave out. Matthew J. Bolton points out in his article “A Fragment of Lost Words”: Narrative Ellipses in The Great Gatsby that “[e]very narrative has elisions” (Bolton 190). These elisions are known as gaps within a story. Without gaps, the story will become drawn out, making the readers bored while reading. The objective is to get the readers to desire what is about to happen next. If the reader is not intrigued, the objective will not be reached. Because he himself is so closely involved with the story he tells, Nick has an interest in leaving gaps between his narrative discourse and the “real” story. This is especially true when Daisy, Nick’s cousin, asks Nick about a rumored engagement. To which he responds:
“Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the o...
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When reflecting on his memories of the man he knew as Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway recalls the unique individual’s finest quality: “It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again” (Fitzgerald 2). Although Gatsby occasionally stepped off the straight and narrow, he never lost sight of his ultimate goal: Daisy’s love. Even when it seemed as though everything was working against him and that he would never regain his lost love, Gatsby kept going, knowing that the strength of his hope would see him through. His childlike determination, while ultimately his downfall, was what made Gatsby truly “great.”
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an absurd story, whether considered as romance, melodrama, or plain record of New York high life. The occasional insights into character stand out as very green oases on an arid desert of waste paper. Throughout the first half of the book the author shadows his leading character in mystery, but when in the latter part he unfolds his life story it is difficult to find the brains, the cleverness, and the glamour that one might expect of a main character.
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