Seasons In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Seasons in literature are important. They are often an integral tool for shaping a reader’s understanding of the environment in which the story takes place. For example, the revolving seasons are an excellent way to emphasize the passing of time and they can also provide context and explanation for the actions of a character; for instance, justification for a character lounging around to tired to move in the oppressive, summer heat of June or the reason a character catches a cold in the freezing winter winds of January. However, Seasons in literature can represent much more than just the time or environment of a story and can also help portray certain other elements in a narrative. This is a sentiment that is shared in Thomas C. Foster’s book, How to Read Literature Like A Professor and it is put into practice in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby when seasons are employed to reinforce or foreshadow the actions, feelings, and relationships between characters. When notable events in the overarching plot of a novel happen, they often occur during seasons that symbolize things relating to those events, such as Nick’s move in the spring, Gatsby’s

As Foster puts it, “When spring is mentioned in a story, a poem, or a play, a veritable constellation of associations rises in our imaginative sky: youth, promise, new life” (Foster 4), proposing that spring is a season of new beginnings and promising starts. This position is bolstered by Fitzgerald’s writing in which his character, Nick Carraway, states, “I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two” (Fitzgerald 3). Nick comments on his migration from his home in the midwest o New York in spring, the season in question signals not only the beginning of the book but the also the outset of his new life in New York and his burgeoning career in the bond business, spring is a season of fresh starts, as stated by Foster, and Nick’s move exemplifies