The Great Gatsby Group

Question:

yerich
yerich
Student
High School - 11th Grade

How does Fitzgerald use point of view to convey theme in the Great Gatsby?

I can tell that the point of view achieves many things, such as providing a trustworthy character and one with a moral center. I just don't know how this relates to theme. Thanks in advance.

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Posted by yerich on Sunday October 18, 2009 at 2:46 PM and tagged with great gatsby, point of view, the great gatsby, theme.

Answers:

  1. appletrees
    appletrees Teacher
    College - Junior

    eNotes Editor

    The novel is in the first person, and the story is told by Nick, a friend of Jay Gatsby. In terms of the novel's themes, which have to do with disillusionment, decadence, and the shallow nature of human motivation, Nick's observations of the behavior of the main characters, Jay and Daisy, filter their behaviors through his own moral perceptions. His occasional shock and hurt provides the reader with a way of tempering the general admiration felt towards Gatsby with a dose of reality. The novel also is concerned thematically with an emphasis on appearances: having a secondary character tell the story allows the reader to understand first and how appearances can be deceiving and how we develop opinions and make judgments based on first impressions or the ways things appear to use before we have any in-depth information. Gatsby is a flawed character who is nevertheless a figure of great charisma; the point of view chosen for the novel addresses this thematic contradiction.

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    Posted by appletrees on Monday October 26, 2009 at 8:50 AM