Dec 21, 2009

The Great Gatsby | Techniques/Literary Precedents

Fitzgerald has been justly praised for his creation of structure in The Great Gatsby. As 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 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 perspective."...