Jan 2, 2010

The Great Gatsby | Literary Qualities

Fitzgerald has been justly praised for the narrative structure of The Great Gatsby. As critic Matthew Bruccoli points out, his "narrative control solved the problem of making the mysterious— almost preposterous—Jay Gatsby convincing by letting the truth about him emerge gradually during the course of the novel." Fitzgerald greatly admired novelist Joseph Conrad's employment of a partially involved narrator, and everything that occurs in the novel is presented through Nick's perceptions, thus combining, as Bruccoli puts it, "the effect of a first-person immediacy with authorial...