The Clock and the Moon

Abstract

In The Great Gatsby, time is of crucial importance. The word itself, and other words related to it, recur frequently. Time is important thematically, being related to Gatsby’s dream, which is deeply concerned with the desire to escape or defeat time, to ‘repeat the past’. This aspect of his dream is comparable to one of the ideas inherent in English Romanticism. Coleridge temporarily escaped from time’s domination when he had the vision which led to his writing ‘Kubla Khan’ (1797). The odes of Keats which Fitzgerald so admired also include the longing to escape from time; to soar above it like the nightingale, or to be removed from it like the Grecian urn. The urn, in particular, is praised and celebrated because it has achieved timelessness. Gatsby’s ‘mythic’ status suggests that he too is timeless.