Time Flashcards
Selfish hedonism - Myrtle
‘you can’t live forever, you can’t live forever’
Selfish hedonistic pursuit of pleasure motivates debauchery
How does the non-chronological narrative contribute to the theme of love and time
- events from the past are revealed gradually and out of sequence through various narrators
- this fragmented structure mirrors how Gatsby’s love is rooted in memory and nostalgia, not present reality
- The reader experiences Gatsby the way he does - through a romanticised, reconstructed past, emphasising the power of the past on Gatsby’s present actions
- reinforces the idea that Gatsby is living in the past whilst everyone around him lives in the present
clock imagery
‘his head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock…luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place’
This reflects his desperate desire to recreate the past and likens him to trimalchio.
It serves as a tragic reminder of the impossibility of reversing the past despite Gatsby’s burning desire to do so, and acts as a physical representation of time
The clock is described as ‘defunct’ just before Gatsby and daisy restart their relationship - the reader is however reminded that although their relationship can essentially pause time temporarily, the clock will keep ticking. It reflects how his love is frozen in the past.
romanticised love and daisy and gatsby’s meeting
‘there must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams…because of the colossal vitality of his illusion’
- an obsession with an ideal, romanticised version. After so many years apart, he has failed in love merely with the idea of her memory rather than reality.
- Daisy and Gatsby;s meeting is a pivotal chapter in the novel, feeling almost climactic. It highlights the relationship between past and present, and repeated time references show how Gatsby is trying to control and orchestrate time in every way that he controls every other aspect of his life.
- their meeting is anticlimactic, as she can never live ups o the intensity of his dream - the idea of love is more powerful than reality
Inescapable nature of the past
‘as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand’
Self-created man can only turn to the past because he knows that it is an inescapable context. He is forced to turn to the future, as he is always curating his own identity.
Ominous description, as Nick is aware that the past Gatsby is obsessed with will lead him to tragedy
The flashback of their kiss
‘the sidewalk was white with moonlight’
- it links to ‘she walks in beauty’, as both speakers assume their lover has an innocent heart.
- romanticised image of purity and femininity
- the kiss is narrated through Nick’s second-person perspective in past-perfect tense
- this emphasises that Gatsby’s kiss belongs to the nostalgic past. In the description, romantic prose is used and the kiss is entwined with philospjocial images - Gatsby is at his most vulnerable as he is lost in a Romantic dream
Uncertain future
‘what’ll we doo with ourselves this afternoon’, cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty years’
For all characters, the future is uncertain and potentially without true love - this itself is a kind of death, so they all share a sense of purposelessness. No matter how superficially or crassly filled, time is the one thing that everyone in the novel tries not to empty
