the great gatsby

The Great Gatsby “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald presents his audience with a novel with intricate symbolism. Nick Carroway, the protagonist, has recently moved from the Midwest to get his career started in New York. He lives on the island of West Egg the poorer side of town, across from East Egg the wealthier side of town. In East Egg are where his pompous and snobbish friends Tom and Daisy live. They gossip and party a lot, all while Tom is cheating on Daisy with a lady named Myrtle Wilson. Everyone knows except for Daisy and Mr. Wilson. Meanwhile, Nick lives next door to a mysterious man named Gatsby, who throws extravagant parties, but yet no one knows anything about him. Throughout the book Nick learns about the mysterious Gatsby and what it is like to live around people who believe in a conceited world of indecency. Fitzgerald involves symbolism into the heart of the novel so strongly that it is necessary to read passages of the book more than once to full understand. The creative yet simplistic styling of this book is a major reason why The Great Gatsby is one of the classics of the 20th century. Throughout the book, three themes dominate the text of The Great Gatsby. These themes include the loss of time, appearance and characterization, and perspective.
The word time appears many times in the novel either by itself or in a compound word. Fitzgerald obviously wanted to emphasize the importance of time to the overall layout of the book. Time is most important to the character, Gatsby. Gatsby's relationship with time is a major aspect to the plot. He wants to erase five years from not only his own life but also his lover, Daisy. When Gatsby tells Nick how he can repeat the past he had with Daisy, it’s what we would call symbolism. It shows the tragic irony that is to fall upon Gatsby. Gatsby exclaims on page 116,