The Rise and Fall of Gatsby’s Dream
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The Rise and Fall of Gatsby’s Dream

The man who pursued a dead dream.

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The Rise and Fall of Gatsby’s Dream
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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, there is a viaduct between the weather outside, and the characters emotions on the inside and the out. The weather is first described as being “with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees” (Fitzgerald 8). This was the hopeful beginning of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship that elevated the mood of readers to believe that “life was beginning over again” (8). As the weather outside changes from “suffocating... hot waves of air” to pouring rain there is a correlating change between Gatsby and Daisy (132). F. Scott Fitzgerald uses rain along with other elements of weather to expose the doomed relationship between Gatsby and Daisy and concludes with rain at his funeral.

When rain pours it drenches the scene unpredictably reflecting the vulnerability of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. At Nick’s house, Gatsby is preparing for Daisy’s arrival and outside “the rain [cools]... to a damp mist through occasional thin drops” (89). The cooling rain is Gatsby’s whole world that is exhausted for Daisy. When Daisy arrives, he feels his true self peaking out amidst the counterfeit design that he has crafted. In attempt to perfect his disguise, he runs out the back door “against the increasing rain” (91). However, the clear rain leaves him “Glaring... and standing in a puddle of water” as well as brings a restoration to the distorted image that he made for himself, the image that Daisy sees right through (91). This foreshadows that he will end up alone without Daisy because in attempt to cover up who he was, the rain exposes him more than ever.

Heat is used to symbolize the tension and problems arising between Gatsby and Daisy. During the lunch at the Buchanan’s mansion, Gatsby meets Tom and the men “[stand] there shuffling the hot pebbles” beneath their feet (130). The burning pebbles represents the burning love that Gatsby has for Daisy. The two men rise angrily with the heat of Gatsby’s illuminating love that made everything so “hot” and “confused” (118). As Tom feels the intensity of Gatsby’s burning pebbles, its strength made the day “broiling, almost the last” (114). On this “warmest day of the summer” Gatsby releases every bit of love for Daisy that he had built up over the years (114). The explosion of heat came from the intensity of his desire that scorched their relationship like fire. The relationship that was once wet with the dew of hope had quickly evaporated in the presence of Tom. Gatsby is drained of all moisture in his body that day as he scorches himself to water a flower that blooms for someone else.

Clouds are used to symbolize the fluffy vapidness of Daisy and they foreshadow the pitiful fall of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. As Daisy looks out the window “The rain [is] still falling, [and] the darkness [has] parted in the west” (91). Despite this, what she sees is “a pink golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea” (91). The falling rain and parting darkness in contrast to the pink cloud, represents that even through the drizzling rain, Daisy has the ability to see the sky, free from the grotesque reality of wet darkness. Her view of the sky parallels her ability to see only the dazzling things of life. The foamy clouds represent the money in her life that swarms around her as protection from the ugly world. She says that she would “like to just get one of those pink clouds and put [him] in it and push [him] around” (91). Her ability to imagine Gatsby inside one of those pink clouds is her way of wishing that she could place Gatsby into the life that she lives. As her scintillating dream floats above a vastly never ending sea, her dream of Gatsby becoming apart of the East remains unattainable. For a moment, Daisy is able to picture Gatsby in her world and she calls him over “quick!” to catch the cloud before it blends away into the western sky (91).

The fog and rain brought together at Gatsby’s funeral is used to represent the death of Gatsby physically and emotionally. The end of Gatsby and Daisy is coming into focus, and as the rain washes away their love “a foghorn groaned incessantly” (154). The foghorn makes it perceivable that Gatsby has wasted away his life for Daisy, and it isn’t until his funeral that the scraps of his life are revealed. This dark “grotesque reality [and] savage frightening dream” is covered up all throughout Gatsby’s existence (154). The people that attend Gatsby’s funeral are “wet to the skin” (182). They are wet for Gatsby because they soaked in the clarity of his dreams. The “man with owl-eyed glasses [was there looking over Gatsby’s grave as] the rain poured down on his thick glasses” (154). Owl eyes could see the coming fall of Gatsby from the very beginning as did the rain and other aspects of weather. Gatsby is left wet in his grave alone as the fog that once clouded his secret was washed away by the rain.

The stormy heat and drizzling rain foreshadow the emptiness that Gatsby would feel without Daisy. The rain, that at one time only seemed to fall, and the sun, that only seemed to burn, end up exposing the end of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. As the weather changed from dripping rain, blinding heat, vapid cloud, and once again drizzling rain, the layers of Gatsby’s pursuit withered. Readers grasp the irony of a man in the pursuit of his lover with a fire so fierce that it ended up burning any chance that he had with Daisy. The paradox of fire and water is seen at Gatsby’s funeral where his scorched body lay beneath the falling rain. The fire and water combine on his deathbed and the vapid cloud blows away without a sound.

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