Seasons have had control over the way people have been living since the beginning of time, and because of that, seasons have dominance over a novel that often goes unnoticed; by creating an atmosphere that readers can relate to. All seasons have certain aspects of life associated with them Thomas C. Foster writes about this in his book How to Read Like a Professor: For about as long as anyone’s been writing anything, the seasons have stood for the same set of meanings. Maybe it’s hard-wired into us that spring has to do with childhood and youth, summer with adulthood and romance and fulfillment and passion, autumn with decline and middle age and tiredness but also harvest, winter with old age and resentment and death. (178) As a result of this, when someone reads the line, “I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer” (8) from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, they realize that it will be filled with the stories of “adulthood and romance and fulfillment and passion.” Seasons present significance in works of literature because they instill themselves in the reader’s emotions, affect the story’s plot, and produce a symbolic meaning. Authors use seasons to stir the emotions of the reader, who more often than not will have memories tied to each season in particular.
Foster recounts some of the points made in Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill”, when he writes, “We know something more is afoot than simply school being out. In fact, our responses are so deeply ingrained that seasonal associations are among the easiest for the writer to upend and use ironically.” (183) Although Fitzgerald does not take advantage of the ironic spin mentioned by Foster, he does understand the feelings that are associated with the seasons; when he writes about the love story of Jay and Daisy, as the seasons change the characters do as well. In this story Jay and Daisy fall in love during the autumn of 1917, later in autumn Jay has to leave to finish his time in the army. He gets sent to Oxford during the spring, and during that time Daisy impatiently begins dating again, she meets Tom and later during the summer marries him. In autumn, Gatsby finally returns and visits her house, but Daisy is on her honeymoon and he fails to find her. (159-162) The love story eventually picks back up in 1922 in the summer, a season which makes a reader think of vacations, hot days on the beach, spending time with friends, and freedom, things that other seasons cannot offer.
The Essay on Summer Time
Is it here, can it be? Every morning, as the months pass, it stays around just a little bit longer. Until finally it stays for a short lived, well needed 3 beautiful months. Its summer time! It is my favorite season of the year. From the time I could say sunshine, up until this very day, summer time is my time of healing! Its what seems to get me through the entire year. It is the one thing that ...
Additionally, the four seasons can introduce changes to the plot of a narrative, just as they affect the real world. The effects of the seasons are much stronger in the storyline of The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s death takes place on the first day of autumn, when a chill enters the air, “The night had made a sharp difference in the weather and there was an autumn flavor in the air.”(163) His decision to use his pool is in defiance of the change of seasons, and illustrations another instance of Gatsby’s reluctance to give in to the passage of time. Thomas comes to a different point in his book when he writes, “When Shakespeare compares his beloved to a summer’s day, we know… that this is way more flattering than being compared to, say, January eleventh.” (183) Similarly Fitzgerald uses the association between summer and partying for Gatsby’s Saturday parties, “There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights.” (43) Fitzgerald uses the symbolic meaning of summer to add to the plot of The Great Gatsby. Finally, seasons are important to literature because they produce a symbolic meaning.
The Essay on The Great Gatsby and Great Expectations: A Comparison
Since the beginning of time, society has been separated into classes; the rulers and the ruled, the rich and the poor, the nobility and the common folk. One can find examples of social caste systems in any time period. Over time, social standards have changed, but one thing has not. Those who possess wealth are thought to also possess happiness. From the outside looking in, the common man always ...
In his book Thomas Foster says this about what summer symbolizes, “summer is passion and love” (177), he later goes on to say about the summer, “Adulthood… romance… fulfillment and passion.” According to Foster, summer basically symbolizes love and maturity, an idea supported throughout The Great Gatsby. Even though he embraces the love of summer, Gatsby’s greatest downfall was his inability to mature his dreams of Daisy, described perfectly when Fitzgerald writes: There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. (103) Although the summer was full of the love that Gatsby and Daisy shared, Gatsby refused to mature his plans for Daisy and as a result his summer came, in the words of Meyer Wolfshiem, “to the bitter end.”(183)
Because seasons implant themselves in the reader’s emotions, affect the story’s plot, and produce a symbolic meaning, they have significance in a novel’s impact. The Great Gatsby a book composed of mostly summertime stories directly reflects upon the way that people recognize the summer. An author taking control of the seasons in a novel or any work of literature is far from unheard of. In a chapter titled “…So does Season” from Thomas Foster’s book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster describes some of the most common ways authors use seasons to add to the affect their story has. As long as the world’s revolving around the sun, seasons will have an extreme effect on earth’s landscape and life.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print. Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.
