ABSTRACT
It is evident that imaginative literature too makes similar demands on its readers. The mock reader of the opening paragraphs of The Great Gatsby, for instance, is a person determined within fairly rigid limits of time and space. There is great variation from book to book in the ease and particularity with which one can describe the mock reader, but he is always present, and sometimes is so clearly and rigorously defined as to suggest serious limitations on the audience. It is probable that Gatsby today enjoys a greater reputation among real-life wild unknown men than it does among the equivalents of Nick Carraway's class. Somehow many people are able to suspend their antagonisms against Nick's brand of normalcy in order to participate in the tone. One crucial objective of the teacher, the author takes it, is simply the enlargement of his 'mock' possibilities.
