The Great Gatsby

Characters who succumb to their destined tragedy can often be said to have been out of time with the society of which they try to be a part. Usually they seem to be 'before their time', trailblazers that the world won't or can't acknowledge. Scott Fitzgerald gives us Gatsby who reaches constantly out to the past, as much as he does to the mysterious green light across the bay. His pain is intensified before us, as we read, through the spectating eyes of Nick Carraway: a cynical yet sympathetic narrator who has his own peculiar angst to deal with. The light, the past, and the narrator: all so near, and yet so far.