How does Fitzgerald tell the story is chapter five?
In chapter five of ‘The Great Gatsby’ the story is told through the narrative methods of time and place with the theme of Gatsby and Daisy’s renunciation of lost love being especially prominent. Fitzgerald uses the bonding of the couple at the tea party as well as Daisy’s introduction to Gatsby’s glory through his mansion tour to consolidate the passion Gatsby has towards Daisy and how this has driven him to centre his life on re-achieving his dream of being together with her.
Fitzgerald uses the motif of time to indicate how Gatsby’s consumption of the past had made him lose track with reality: ‘the clock…smashed to pieces on the floor’ is used to describe the breaking of Nick’s clock whilst Gatsby speaks to Daisy of their past. The use of the adverb ‘smashed’ portrays how the five year time distance between Gatsby and Daisy is beyond repair. Gatsby’s urge to pay for the damage suggests he perceives his broken time can be fixed through wealth: an extended metaphor for how he is alluring Daisy back with his excessiveness of glorious material and objects. This sense of disorientation from the present is also evoked through Gatsby’s obsessive desperation for Daisy’s love through meandering the past, the phrase: ‘five years next November’ gives a sense of his un-humanly machine like calculation of their lost time: heavily indicating that the partition has caused obsessive dwelling on Gatsby’s behalf, making him unable to grasp the passivity of time.
Likewise, to emphasise the passion of their love and the lengthy separation Gatsby and Daisy faced, Fitzgerald uses the narrative method of place by fluctuating the weather on the day in the chapter. The contrasting transition between ‘twinkle bells of sunshine’ and ‘damp mist’ give the chapter a reflection on Gatsby and Daisy’s lengthy history and helps the reader come to terms with the devotion of their relationship, a setting stone to the significance of the rest of the novella. The chapter’s transition of weather starts with rain, and upon Daisy’s entrance to Nick’s