The Great Gatsby's Summer & American Dream
F. Scott Pursues Seasonal Imagery to Describe the Loss of Hope.
Dec 11, 2008
Fitzgerald writes of the nature of summer, alluding to the death of hope, and how it applies to the American Dream.
Season of Death
Along with flashbacks and the imagery of night and day, the overripe descriptions of summer foreshadow the decomposition of a character’s dream.
Nick describes Gatsby’s demise through the “five crates of oranges and lemons [that arrive] from a fruiterer in New York— ever Monday these same oranges and lemons [leave] his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves” (39). Gatsby possesses the fruitfulness of possibilities but only at the brink of turning rotten. Gatsby does not understand that summer is his last chance to accomplish his dream. He uses garish parties and swimming pools as accouterments to attract Daisy, but with every event Daisy misses, the opportunity for Gatsby’s dream to actualize deteriorates. Time is wasted and his dream becomes more “pulpy” and debauched.
Although Daisy loves Gatsby, she has an inability to leave her East Egg prestige for a West Egg denizen. Daisy’s intentions with Gatsby characterize the “desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers” that remain from the swimming party (109). The description of the summer parallels with Gatsby’s decay, he remains like the leftovers— squished and destroyed, showing how the summer brings dreams to decay because the last hope of Daisy’s love is vanquished.
Jordan Baker is used as a device to demonstrate how summer is the beginning of the end. Jordan describes the fall as being a season where life starts over. Her statement foreshadows Gatsby’s inevitable ruin. The overripe description of the summer describes how the following season will only result in death— a time where life starts over.
Gatsby does not win Daisy’s love; therefore, summer renders nothing except crushed fruitions and the decay of the human spirit. Gatsby, the ultimate dreamer, cannot continue life without Daisy, so Jordan’s statement about autumn foreshadows Gatsby’s death. For life to start over, Gatsby, who cannot live with his defiled dream, is killed, displaying how fruitions are destroyed by the transition of summer to fall. Seasons are devised to show how time foreshadows the decadence of a character.
Time Debauching the American Dream
Time debauches life; people are given the impression that life’s limitless opportunities also present an eon to accomplish them. Through flashback, descriptions of night and day, and seasons, idealism decays to an utter ruin.
As well, people are deceived by the preconceptions of the American dream: one can “[take] what [one] [can] get, ravenously and unscrupulously” (149). Even though Gatsby “[makes] most of his time”, time is a ruthless force that hinders him from grasping his exact ideal. The combination of idealism and restriction of time renders an inevitable demise.
Ideals are never fully realized— the imagination can always conjure something more fantastic. Time also restricts the fruition of dreams because it not a renewable resource. Life limits humans with mortality, while dreams can take an eternity to accomplish. The dreamers in the novel are brought to their demise through the misconception of time; Gatsby, especially, is a product of misplaced faith and devotion in time. He believes one can always repeat the past.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald destroys dreamers by using time as a force of constraint. Nick narrates that people are “boats against the current” who struggle with the realities of the ticking clock. As the sand dwindles within the hourglass, dreams are increasingly impossible to attain, ultimately destroying a human’s spirit.
Works Consulted
Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
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