Fitzgerald uses the weather to intensify the mood in pivotal scenes in the novel. One notable example appears in chapter five on the day of Gatsby's reunion with Daisy. The weather is uncertain: rainy as Nick and Gatsby make the preparations, drizzly as Daisy arrives and she and Gatsby make their awkward re-acquaintance, and still unsettled when Nick leaves them together at Gatsby's house where "the rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west."
When the tension ratchets up in chapter seven in the hours leading up to the showdown between Tom and Gatsby, the weather is described as "broiling" hot. Nick describes the hotel room where the climactic scene occurs as "large and stifling" and offering little respite from the heat they've been struggling with all day.
On the day of Gatsby's funeral in chapter nine, it rains. Nick describes raindrops "splashing... over the soggy ground," the owl-eyed man wiping his glasses "outside and in," and someone at the funeral murmuring, "Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on."
No comments:
Post a Comment