Repetition of the past

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He looked around him wildly as if the past was lurking here in the shadows of his house. Jay Gatsby was always talking of the past. He wanted to recover something or some idea of himself when he fell in love with Daisy.2

The Great Gatsby shows that time was a commanding theme. We see this in the meeting with Daisy coming over to Nick's place for tea, where she didn't knowing that Gatsby would be there.3

During the time that Daisy is there Gatsby is leading his head back so far to the point that it's resting against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock. The clock symbols Gatsby's emotional frame is out of sync with the passage of time. 4

Before Gatsby was able to speak the clock tilt dangerously at the pressure of Gatsby's head. Whereupon he caught it with trembling fingers. His nervousness about the present, and Daisy's attitude toward him causes Gatsby to knock over the clock, this clumsy attempt to stop time, so he could go back and retrieve the past.5

Gatsby takes Nick and Daisy to show them his house, during the tour they run into Klipsringer a gest that was left over from a party last may. Gatsby as klipsringer to play something for them, he sits down at the piano and starts to play, "In the meantime, In the between time".6

The song is refering to the many lifestyle of the nouveau rich. Where they would have no cents of time. 7

Gatsby would never go to his parties, the only time he went was when Daisy came, even then they didn't stay long. Daisy turns to Nick saying "In case there's a fire or a flood "or even a act of God." Then Gatsby and Daisy slip off to Nick's house.8

We sea another aspect for this commanding of the past. Nick being a observer, share with us his thoughts on the colorful people who show up at Gatsby door. "Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table, the names of those who accepted Gatsby's hospitality, and those paid him the trouble of not knowing anything about him."9

Gatsby 's life was confused and disordered, but if he could once return to a certain time and place and go over it again, he may find what he is looking for. 10

Gatsby tells Nick of the walk he and Daisy shared together. "It was a late autumn night the air was crisp and clean, out of the corner of his eyes Gatsby seas that the blocks of the sidewalk started to formed a ladder. If Gatsby could climb to the secret place at the top of the trees, once there he would suck on the pap of life. And he knew that when he kissed her and forever wed, his longing for her may never return again."11

Should we as people look to are past? As an artist, our past is the source of our creativity. We draw from our feelings, whether they are good or bad. With some artists the past is all they have to look to, the late Walt Disney once said "just keep on moving forward" If we don't move ahead we will never know what we our capable of doing, As an artist or just a person.12

I leave you with this final thought from F.Scott Fitzgerald. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out are arms farther... And one fine morning... So we beat on, boats against the current, born back carelessly into the past.13