The Great Gatsby, a novel By F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a love story embedded in Nick Carraways tale of life living in West Egg. Though the entire book is narrated by Nick, it is sometimes forgotten that he is present in certain scenes. As the story starts to play out the reader is able to see the importance of Nick’s role and how his eyes reveal the leitmotifs present. Not only does the amount of leitmotifs shown increase as the story develops but the significance of the leitmotifs also becomes more important. The most significant leitmotifs in The Great Gatsby are images of water, decay, automobiles, and light/dark and through the reoccurrences of the images the themes of the novel becomes more apparent.
Water, one of the most important things …show more content…
The first image of decay present is when Nick is with Tom waiting for Myrtle and they are talking about what a terrible place it is and Tom says “it does her good to get away”. This is Tom indirectly saying it benefits Myrtle to live his way and get away from her nonrich neighborhood. Because in Toms mind someone can’t be happy living in a poor town. Another time decay is present is when Gatsby says to Nick he wants to get Nicks grass cut before Daisy comes. The reason Gatsby wants to get Nicks grass cut is because uncut grass tends to symbolize a lack of wealth and Gatsby wanted Daisy to be impressed. By Nick having his grass cut it makes the West Egg seem wealthy like where Daisy …show more content…
These themes first becomes noticeable when Tom and Wilson are having a conversation and Wilson asks “When are you going to sell me that car”. Tom takes offense to such a question and states he will sell it somewhere else. Now most people can’t afford to not get an order but it doesn’t matter to Tom because everyone wants an automobile at the moment. Which means Tom has the power to sell to whoever he wants because there is always someone else willing to buy his cars. Continuing on with the novel, automobiles are one of the reasons so many people show up to Gatsby’s parties. Gatsby has the power of attracting all sorts of people over because automobiles make it easy for people to come. On weekends when Gatsby has party’s he uses his automobiles to meet people at the train and bring them to his house. Most people wouldn’t be able to afford a constant car service but Gatsby can. Another time Gatsby’s cars symbolized his power is when the policeman pulled up to him over but didn’t get a ticket. It was because he Gatsby did him a favor once. Because Gatsby has so much money he was able to do the man a favor which lead to him getting off the
Water, one of the most important things …show more content…
The first image of decay present is when Nick is with Tom waiting for Myrtle and they are talking about what a terrible place it is and Tom says “it does her good to get away”. This is Tom indirectly saying it benefits Myrtle to live his way and get away from her nonrich neighborhood. Because in Toms mind someone can’t be happy living in a poor town. Another time decay is present is when Gatsby says to Nick he wants to get Nicks grass cut before Daisy comes. The reason Gatsby wants to get Nicks grass cut is because uncut grass tends to symbolize a lack of wealth and Gatsby wanted Daisy to be impressed. By Nick having his grass cut it makes the West Egg seem wealthy like where Daisy …show more content…
These themes first becomes noticeable when Tom and Wilson are having a conversation and Wilson asks “When are you going to sell me that car”. Tom takes offense to such a question and states he will sell it somewhere else. Now most people can’t afford to not get an order but it doesn’t matter to Tom because everyone wants an automobile at the moment. Which means Tom has the power to sell to whoever he wants because there is always someone else willing to buy his cars. Continuing on with the novel, automobiles are one of the reasons so many people show up to Gatsby’s parties. Gatsby has the power of attracting all sorts of people over because automobiles make it easy for people to come. On weekends when Gatsby has party’s he uses his automobiles to meet people at the train and bring them to his house. Most people wouldn’t be able to afford a constant car service but Gatsby can. Another time Gatsby’s cars symbolized his power is when the policeman pulled up to him over but didn’t get a ticket. It was because he Gatsby did him a favor once. Because Gatsby has so much money he was able to do the man a favor which lead to him getting off the