English E Band
Ms. Willet
5/15/12
Escaping his past, by avoiding reality: Enchanted Items in The Great Gatsby
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the central focus of the book is on the books romantic hero, Jay Gatsby. Through out the story, items such as the green light, clocks, and cars, mystify the reader and are tremendously important to the story. These Enchanted Items personify and further advance Jay Gatsby’s momentous need for Daisy’s unaltered affection and his craving for his version of an idealistic lifestyle.
The clock is a consequential addition to the novel, demonstrating Gatsby’s difficult relationship with time, and its importance should not be easily overlooked. The clock makes its first appearance in the novel in one of the most crucial chapters, chapter five. This chapter marks Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion, as this is the first time they have seen each other since their relationship came to an abrupt end in Louisville. Gatsby is very nervous during this reunion, and Gatsby’s actions, and Fitzgerald’s language, depict that. “Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock”(92). The use of language is so fantastic and insightful here, and it truly displays Gatsby’s need to turn back time, as if the “overwound clock” is in fact Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. Although Gatsby attempts to overly impress Daisy with his newfound riches, Gatsby still never really fits in with the upper class. As Patrick W. Shaw says, Daisy is not quite “deluded by the falseness of Gatsby’s life”(126). This makes it extremely tough for Gatsby to remind Daisy of their great memories in Louisville because she is not fazed by his new lifestyle and money.
The oddly mysterious green light in The Great Gatsby illustrates the distance between Gatsby and Daisy, emotionally as well as physically, being that one lives in east egg, and one lives in west egg. As a result of this, the green light represents a relationship that can...