Name __________________________
The Great Gatsby: Why Is the Narrator Telling Us This Story? (p 1-2)
1) Paraphrase the advice the narrator’s father gave him when he was younger.
2) A. As a result of his dad's advice, paraphrase the “habit” the narrator tries to follow.
B. Paraphrase what,according to the narrator, is the downside of practicing this "habit"? (This requires
some decoding and wrestling with vocabulary.)
3) A. What does the narrator mean when he claims "a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out
unequally at birth” (2)?
B. The fact that he admits this statement is "snobbish"—what is Fitzgerald trying to show us about the
narrator?
4) Why is reserving judgments a “matter of infinite hope” (2)? (Consider what might we miss out on
without that “infinite hope”).
5) What does the narrator realize he does not posses an unlimited supply of?
6) So, this novel is called The Great Gatsby. What does the narrator think is great about Gatsby? List the
qualities.
7) What evidence suggests the narrator does NOT think everything about Gatsby is great?
8) Now finish this sentence: The narrator is telling us his story because it will show why...