The Inevitability Of Time
In the book, the inevitability of time is represented in many ways, like the ripples of disaster and anxiety that subtly flood Gatsby’s life until his death at the end. Part of this is the inevitability of Daisy leaving Gatsby almost without a second thought, and I think Gatsby was half expecting his life to go downhill at any moment.
Jay Gatsby was ‘born’ at sea and made into a money-making businessman, the sea gave him hope to start fresh with no past connecting him to a different life to get in the way of him living the American dream. When he came to the final moment of his life when death altered his dreams, his last breaths were drowned by water, his hopes of daisy loving him and happy life was the very thing that took his life from him. His whole life was a lie that he had created, he died living a life that he may or may not have regretted in the end.
Another representation of water is the fact that a body of water separates Gatsby and Daisy, just like time has separated them for five years, but like when Gatsby was reaching out his hand across that water, as if she didn’t know it was there, he can’t see that time has moved on and Daisy has moved on as well. He can’t get past that one fact he has obviously tried to avoid for a long time. When they both went for tea at nicks house, the rain followed and reacted with their emotions, as time would react to on sill stuck in the past. Daisy was his undoing, in the end, the cause for the Great Gatsby to fall.
The American Dream
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald never explicitly says that it’s the American dream everyone is working towards, however, it is implied multiple times through Nick, Gatsby, and Tom, and in the majority of cases Daisy. with the American dream being available to the public through hard work and dedication, everyone comes to America for the chance to make good money and to live the dream life everyone wants. What they don’t know is that it’s strictly unattainable by forces unseen, people do the hard work but they still don’t get their reward by the end of their life, even those who seem to have accomplished the American dream, they still have something that has eluded them through the time it took them to get what they wanted. Something too good to be true, one where circumstances like gender or race won’t interfere with. Something that anyone could be apart of and not be put down for it.
“Why they came East I don’t know. . . . I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.”
For this quote Tom seems to never find his place in the world, like he can’t settle down and remain in one place for an extended period of time. Unlike Daisy who could drift either way, feeling restless and drifting, to wanting to stay in the East purely because she didn’t want to go. For Tom, he wants adventure, some excitement in his life to talk about as you would when watching a football game. He doesn’t want to be tied down to an ordinary life, gone unheard of and unimportant, I think this is also why he’s so bitter, because he can’t have everything he wants when he wants it, I would imagine that he isn’t used to working or waiting for something he wants as he has money so he doesn’t have to work for things that cost money. but things like loyalty and love cannot be payed for and cannot be bought, as he found out when Daisy and Gatsby were found out by Tom.
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