In Perspective

One of the things I loved about F. Scott Fitzgerald was the point of view he uses. As I researched it, I found that his point of view and narrative techniques were some of the most defining parts of his style. The Great Gatsby is viewed as his best literary work in part because the point of view was so effective. Fitzgerald used different points of view to help show his themes. The points of view convey the emotion of the times, but also show the reality of the times.

His first novel, This Side of Paradise, is told by a third-person narrator, who is very much aware of what he is doing, and as much of an egotist as the main character Amory Blaine. "She had been born and brought up in France.... I see I am starting wrong. Let me begin again." The narrator appears very self-conscious of what he is doing. Throughout the novel, the choice to include all of Amory's poems is as much the narrator showing off as it is Amory.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." And that is exactly the way he wrote the point of view in The Great Gatsby - with this kind of double vision. The story is told from the first-person point of view of Nick Carraway, who both participates in the Jazz Age lifestyle, and observes and judges it. "Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?" Daisy asks him, to which he responds; "That's why I came over to-night." Nick is involved in the lavish, meaningless lifestyles of so many, but he can also evaluate it critically. "I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart." The double vision he possesses allows us, the readers, to feel the emotion and excitement of living at that time, but to also see the truth.

In his writing, and especially in This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses point of view techniques to their fullest potential. Through the different points of view - even in the same novel- Fitzgerald portrays his characters and the world he lived in.