Thank you for your thoughtful posts thus far. If the line you wished to post about is already here, then feel free to respond to that post and add your comment/question/connection or to elaborate on what your classmate said.
It has been five years since Daisy and Gatsby last met. Much has happened over those five years, and Fitzgerald emphasizes the time by incorporating a number of symbols and the repetition of certain words and phrases. Look for at least two references to time in chapter 5. Post one of them on our class discussion page.
Time was referenced at the very beginning of chapter 5 when Nick arrives home from West Egg at night where he writes, "Two o’clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires" (87).
ReplyDeleteWhen Daisy and Gatsby reunite at Nick's house, Nick describes how Gatsby's "...head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock", and the clock later falls into Gatsby's hands.
ReplyDeleteOn page 85, Gatsby begins a rather uncomfortable conversation with Daisy and he apologizes for his broken clock, but Nick tires to comfort him by saying that “it’s an old clock”. Gatsby is not referring to the clock in a literal sense but rather to the time passed in his life since he had last seen Daisy. However, it is ok because they are now reunited and thus he catches it before it breaks completely.
ReplyDeleteOn page 91, Gatsby is impatiently waiting for Daisy to arrive and he tells Nick that she isn't going to come, and that is is going home. Nick responds by saying, "Don't be silly, its just 2 minutes to 4". This reference to the time is showing Gatsby's incredible impatience because the clock hasn't even struck 4 and he is already bailing.
ReplyDeleteWhen the trio are touring Gatsby’s mansion, Nick describes Gatsby as, “running down like an overwound clock”(pg 99), because he’s so nervous about Daisy.
ReplyDeleteBefore Gatsby arrives, he sends over many things to make sure Nick's place is ready for when Daisy arrives. One of these instances is when "At eleven o’clock a man in a raincoat dragging a lawn-mower tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to
ReplyDeletecut my grass" (89).
Gatsby's nerves are very high before Daisy's arrival and he becomes clumsy and knocks over Nick's clock. This moment symbolizes how he wants time to halt (by dropping the clock) and would like to go back into time so he can restore his relationship with Daisy.
ReplyDeleteNick references time in chapter five many times, especially the clock. Gatsby is disappointed that he has broken the clock but this shows that Gatsby wants to turn time back to when 5 years ago, during the time Daisy married Tom.
ReplyDeleteWhile Daisy is at Nick’s for tea, Gatsby accidentally leans against a clock on the mantle, knocks it over, sets it back up and is concerned, but Nick lets him know that it’s okay because, “‘it’s an old clock’”(93). Another reference to time is when Gatsby panics at 3:58pm that Daisy won’t show up, even though she wasn’t supposed to arrive until 4pm. Gatsby looks at his watch and says, “‘I can’t wait all day’”(91) as if he couldn’t wait 2 more minutes to reunite with Daisy after 5 years of waiting. I wonder if it is a coincidence that it’s been about 5 years since they’ve seen each other and this scene is in chapter 5. Gatsby wishes he could get back all the lost time and rewind his life, so he would be the one married to Daisy instead of Tom.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gatsby is at Nick's house to meet Daisy, he knocks a clock off the mantelpiece. He then apologizes to Nick for knocking the clock over, even though he caught it and it didn't break. This shows that in Gatsby's mind, he can turn back time to when he could have married Daisy, but that in reality it won't be that easy.
ReplyDeleteWhen the clock falls, and Gatsby seems to worry about it being broken, Nick reassures him that it is okay. I think this is Nick’s way of assuring Gatsby that even though a lot of time has passed since his last encounter with Daisy, it’s not too late.
ReplyDeleteThroughout this whole chapter Gatspy is very nervous and impatient. He assumes that Daisy isn't coming when it hasn't even been 4pm yet, and later he drops Nick's clock which causes him to worry that he might have broken it.
ReplyDeleteWhen Daisy first arrives at Nick's house, Gatsby is clearly extremely flustered and ends up knocking Nick's clock off the mantel, catching it at the very last second before it shatters. Nick notices that "...we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor." (p. 87) This potentially symbolizes how the time that has passed during Daisy and Gatsby's relationship has almost broken it, yet there is still a chance to save it. But, the time has not passed without taking a toll on the relationship, as can be seen by the awkward first encounter and Daisy stating, "we haven't met for many years" (p. 87) after the clock is almost shattered.
ReplyDeleteTime comes up many times throughout the chapter and it is not limited to physical objects or mentions of time. On page 92, Gatsby is described as "running down like an overwound clock" meaning that he is going too fast, most likely due to his nervousness. This shows how much Daisy means to him, especially after all this time.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed this part. I feel like this metaphor of an overwound clock also applies to his and Daisy’s relationship. In the five years that have passed, Gatsby has turned his image of Daisy from her actual self to an illusion she can’t live up to. This “overwinding” might seem to possibly help the relationship, but instead it’ll cause trouble.
DeleteGatsby is obsessed with the past, and bringing back what he once had with Daisy. He has waited five years to rekindle the romance that he once had with, and during this time he has begun to create and idealized version of Daisy in his mind. When Gatsby meets Daisy at Nicks house he is extremely nervous and therefore knocks over an old clock. The three people in the house seemed to "believe for a moment it had smashed to pieces on the floor". By almost smashing the clock on the floor, it seems as if it offers Gatsby a glimpse that reliving the past would be challenging.
ReplyDeleteGatsby and Daisy have not spoken to each other in five years. So, when they are finally given this time to reconnect,they are seemingly transported back in time. They are in their own world and have no sense of time anymore. As Nick leaves them, he notices that, "Gatsby didn't know me now at all". This points out that Gatsby is living in the past in that moment.
ReplyDeleteAt 2 'o'clock flowers were delivered to Nick's house and then an hour early for the meeting Gatsby arrives "An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie hurried in. He was pale and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes." Not only is Gatsby shown to be anxious by how early he is for the meeting, he looks visually sleep deprived because he couldn't get sleep knowing he was going to meet Daisy tomorrow.
ReplyDelete“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”. When Gatsby knocks the clock over and barley catches it which can represent the time that Daisy and Gatsby lost and how Gatsby wants to make up for the lost time and catch up.
ReplyDeleteOne of the phrases I noticed Gatsby repeats a lot in this chapter is when he calls Nick "old sport". I went through and counted each instance of the phrase in this chapter. Gatsby call Nick "old sport" 12 times in this chapter, and the phrase appears only 45 times in the whole book. I think Gatsby's use of the term is to emphasize the chapter's warped sense of time that arises from Gatsby and Daisy meeting each other again after all these years. This is made especially clear when Nick walks back into the room where Gatsby and Daisy are sitting and Gatsby tells Nick "‘Oh, hello, old sport,’ he said, as if he hadn’t seen me for years"(94). Right before this, Nick describes Gatsby as "literally glow[ing]"(94), setting up a magical, surreal tone that is about to be emphasized by Gatsby's exaggerated temporal perception.
ReplyDelete-Jona Lehmann
Gatsby believes that since him and Daisy were pretty much inseparable five years ago, that they can just reconnect again as if time didn’t pass. He doesn’t realize that in those five years both of their lives changed dramatically.
ReplyDeleteOne reference to time is the broken clock on Nick's mantle. I think that it symbolizes how badly Gatsby wants to turn back time but no matter how much he tries, he is unable to and cannot turn it back.
ReplyDeleteOne reference is that when Gatsby shows up at Nick's house to visit Daisy, he knows down to the number of months how long it has been since he last saw Daisy.
ReplyDeleteTime references that I think was interesting is when Gatsby leans against this broken clock while he talks to Daisy, it symbolizes the distance between them that can never be mended. He wishes he could repeat the past, and this proves an impossible for him. “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” ( 86). Gatsby resting on the clock represents the pressure he puts on time to recreate a moment he had with Daisy in the past. The clock falling represents nothing but the inability of Gatsby to live in the past.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gatsby shows up to Nick's house, they wait for some time for Daisy to show up. He tells Nick at one point that he's going to leave: "'Nobody's coming to tea. It's too late!' He looked nervously at his watch. 'I can't wait all day'"(91). Up until this meeting with Daisy, Gatsby has been super laid back about timing for things. Now he is suddenly impatient and nervous because he's going to see Daisy again. After Daisy arrives and the two sit together awkwardly for a while, Nick goes to sit under a tree to let them be alone together. Noting a change in weather, time, and mood, Nick returns: "After half an hour the sun had shone again. The rain had sounded like the murmur of their voices, but in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within the house too"(95). Nick leaving forces the two to talk to each other, and the change in weather symbolizes the change in mood.
ReplyDelete-Evan Bak
In addition to several references to clocks, a reference to time that I found interesting was when it was two minutes before Daisy was supposed to show up to Nick's house for tea. I found it kind of funny that Gatsby was ready to give up and felt that he couldn't wait two minutes for Daisy, even though he has already been waiting for five years.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. It was probably more comforting for Gatsby when he did not know the exact time or place he would be meet Daisy, rather than counting down the minutes to this moment he had been waiting for for so long.
DeleteNick seems to reference the clock many times during the chapter. In the beginning of the chapter, Nick arrives home from the West Egg, and the text says, "Two o’clock and the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires" (87). Also, when Gatsby knocks over the clock, he apologizes even though the clock was not damaged.
ReplyDeleteGatsby mentions the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. The light used to symbolize Daisy and gave Gatsby hope about meeting her again one day. When they are standing together staring at the light, Gatsby realizes that there is no longer a need for hope because he had accomplished his dreams, and the green light lost its meaning.
ReplyDeleteThe reference to the clocks, specifically when Gatsby knocks over Nick's clock, I guess is a representation of how Gatsby is finally moving forward in his life. Up until now most things we have learnt about Gatsby, whether that be trough rumors or himself, have been about his past. Now that he has met Daisy, he is forced to progress yet his clumsiness in knocking over the clock shows how he is out of sink with time. This leads to the next reference which is the constant mention of the antiques in Gatsby's house. This once again shows how out of sink Gatsby is with his current situation. The love he has for Daisy is inherently troublesome because Gatsby carries over expectations he had about their love from five years ago, which is an assumption riddled with problems.
ReplyDelete- Seiyoung Jang
Throughout the entire chapter, they often say what time it is, at the beginning of the chatper, they say it's two o'clock, when a man comes to cut the grass, they say its eleven o'clock... -Zoe Rigoulot
ReplyDeleteOn PG 97, as the trio walks into Gatsby's house, Nick feels like there are "guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through". It feels like time has stopped, the guests are all frozen in time. Time has been moving forward since Gatsby left for the war but now, his house is frozen in time when they are reunited.
ReplyDeleteI though tit was interesting that we learn what the green light is that gatsby is looking at in the end of chapter 1. I had asked about that in my 3-2-1 journal so I though the symbolism that it was actually daisy's light on her dock and how gatbsy brought it up to her this chapter was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhen Daisy first arrives at Nick’s for tea, Gatsby was so nervous that Nick mentions that “for half a minute there wasn’t a sound” when he sees Daisy (92). After this, Gatsby “leaned [his head] back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position, his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy who was sitting frightened but graceful on the edge of a stiff chair” (92). The “defunct masterpiece clock” signifies that Gatsby is still living in the past with Daisy, while Daisy has already moved on.
ReplyDeletethe broken clock on nicks mantle- When Gatsby leans against this broken clock while he talks to Daisy, it symbolizes the distance between them
ReplyDeleteAt first, Gatsby becomes impatient while waiting for Daisy. Although he has been waiting for her for 5 whole years, he is unable to wait a couple more minutes, knowingly that Daisy is not even late. Gatsby also breaks the clock and as the clock stops ticking, it implies that he is stuck in time.
ReplyDeleteOne symbol is the clock that gatsby breaks and nick says that it’s an old clock. Obviously a reference to time and how gatsby is attempting to break it by getting back with daisy. Later a clock is referenced again, where gatsby is running down like an over wound clock. It doesn’t work. Also, they go through old pictures of each other when they were younger, they are stuck in time
ReplyDeletePrior to the actual meeting, Nick and Gatsby discuss how to prepare for it and Nick asks if Gatsby would rather delay it a few days. Fitzgerald writes that Gatsby "fumbled with a series of beginnings" as he attempts to come up with a response, indicating not only that he's having trouble with this discussion he's having with Nick, but also alluding to the stress he's under as he plans his meeting with Daisy. He's imagining multiple different scenarios for how the meeting could go and he's worried that it'll go wrong if he doesn't plan the perfect beginning, so to speak. The rain throughout the chapter symbolizes what stage Gatsby and Daisy are at in their meeting. It's raining heavily at the beginning of their meeting and the two are awkward and unsure around each other. The rain stops later on when Nick rejoins them at Gatsby's house and they seem to have somewhat rekindled their old relationship. It begins to rain again as Nick leaves for the final time, foreshadowing future troubles in their relationship.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gatsby arrives at Nick house, he is extremely nervous and knocks over a clock. I thought that this kind of symbolizes how he is trying to turn back time and rewrite his history with Daisy, now that he is wealthy.
ReplyDeleteThe lyrics to "The Love Nest":THE RICH GET RICHER AND THE POOR GET—
ReplyDeleteCHILDREN. IN THE MEANTIME, IN BETWEEN TIME——
These are odd, because Daisy and Gatsby are the rich, and they are simply growing richer, in material wealth and in their newfound connection with each other. The only person time is passing for in this scene is Nick, a more average person, an outsider with a unique view into the world of transcendent splendor.
Gatsby's boyish wonder at Daisy: He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.
Gatsby has so far worked steadily to maintain an image of nonchalance and superiority among those around him, but Daisy coming back into his life has suddenly made the past five years without her seem unimportant, so all of the energy going into Gatsby's image is being released as time races to catch up with itself.
When Gatsby knocks over Nick’s clock, at first I thought it symbolized the idea that Gatsby and Daisy simply cannot go back in time to fix their relationship. However, it’s clear that the two have caught up at the end of the chapter. Going back, the breaking of the clock may represent Gatsby’s desire to break the time span between him and Daisy.
ReplyDelete"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" (93). The knocking over of Nick's clock symbolizes Gatsby anxiousness to be with Daisy, being clumsy and staying up late the night before.
ReplyDelete-Oliver
DeleteGatsby is constantly infatuated with the old Daisy he knew from before. In the time in between, although Gatsby remained tied to his love, Daisy instead decided to go with another man for financial security rather than love. In this way, it makes me hope that Gatsby will see that she is a different person than the one he knew before. The passage of time appears to have stopped for Gatsby as he waits for his love, whereas Daisy's time has continued on. This distinction will no doubt come to bite Gatsby.
ReplyDelete- Cameron Gurwell
"Two o’clock
ReplyDeleteand the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light
which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires" (87).
"The rain cooled about half-past three to a damp mist
through which occasional thin drops swam like dew" (90).
- Gatsby almost knocks over the clock but catches it, but him, Nick, and Daisy "all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor". This could mean that Gatsby is ambivalent about wanting to go back to the past, since he is not sure whether he wanted the clock to break or not (i.e. whether we wants time to proceed as normal or to stop/reverse).
ReplyDelete- After a moment when "a new well-being radiated from [Gatsby] and filled the little room", he addresses Nick "as if he hadn't seen [Nick] for years". This could be because Gatsby had a moment of happiness from remembering his romance with Daisy five years ago, and when Nick comes Gatsby breaks out of his daydreaming.
"Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock"(99). Gatsby had an image of what he wanted with Daisy building over the last five years. Once he feels that he's gotten to that dream situation, he starts to feel the effects of that time they missed. When you get separated from someone for a long time you tend to romanticize everything about them, and in this moment Gatsby begins to recognize that happening and that maybe this isn't what he thought it would be.
ReplyDelete- "Nobody's coming to tea. It's too late!"(90) Gatsby gets super stressed out before Daisy arrived and starts to over think the time.
ReplyDelete- "In the meantime, In between time-"(101). Klipspringer plays a song on the piano with these lyrics after Gatsby demands it.
I really enjoyed how we returned to the theme of the green light. I always understood the green light as the typical symbol of "go forward" and that makes so much sense that that we put in the lens of Gatsby's longing for Daisy, almost like a "go" follow your dreams. And as Kiwa mentioned, he no longer needs this symbol as he has already accomplished his dreams.
ReplyDelete