What's Weather Got To Do With It?

What's Weather Got to Do With It?

In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, weather is often an undercurrent of what's happening in the novel. "When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure" (Alice Hoffman, Here on Earth). With weather one is never sure of how the day is going turn out, sunny or rainy? The same goes for love, loves me or loves me not? Throughout The Great Gatsby, the weather and location often reflects the mood and the people in the surrounding area.

Gatsby and Daisy see each other for the first time after many years; however, it becomes awkward for them to be there with one another. Fitzgerald wrote, "The day agreed upon was pouring rain" (64). When Daisy and Gatsby first meet, all is not well between them. The thunderstorm represents the uncertainty that revolves in their heads on this first encounter. Fitzgerald writes, "While the rain continued it has seemed like the murmur of their voices... But in the new silence I felt that silence had fallen within the house too" (67). Nick felt that with the weather staying constant Gatsby and Daisy had lost something to talk about. Nick says when he walks into the room that Gatsby and Daisy are in, "'It's stopped raining'... there were twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room... [Gatsby] smiled...like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light and repeated the news to Daisy" (Fitzgerald 68). When Gatsby and Daisy become more comfortable with one another the sun comes out to show the mood has lightened. Gatsby is a new person because he is finally connected with the person he has been trying to impress by any means necessary. With the initial storm of uncertainty, then the sunshine after the storm, Gatsby and Daisy's moods lighten.

Where the characters lived in the novel reflected their way of life. Fitzgerald wrote, "...the function of representing the staid nobility of the country-side- East Egg..." (35). This is coming from Nick who is realizing that, at the party that Gatsby is holding, people are trying to act like the well-established East Egg. East Egg is reflected in the Buchanans because they are part of the old money and aristocracy that hold all the good connections. Fitzgerald wrote, "West Egg...on guard against its spectroscopic gayety." (Fitzgerald 35). Even though the West Egg has money, they do not know how to use it. Gatsby emanates this by throwing parties every weekend and buying a yellow car. Fitzgerald writes, "...[H]alf way between West Egg and New York the motor road...shrink[s] away from a certain desolate area of land" (Fitzgerald 19). This is talking about the Valley of Ashes, a place that is without hope and is hidden between New York City and extravagant West Egg. George is hidden