Similarities Between East And West In The Great Gatsby

Within this microcosm of the American Dream, like a revolutionary era museum, tells a story of the right time and place. The Roaring twenties, the “Jazz Age”, and the city that never sleeps.The morals are looser, dreams become reality,and the times are changing. Fitzgerald uses the concept of East and West, and time as symbols of the American Dream and its morals.
The concept of East and West are embodied by the homes of the characters, East and West egg. “A more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size” (5). East egg houses “old” money residents where affairs are the just part of everyday life, exemplified by the Buchanan’s union. West egg is host to the drunken parties of “new” money residents,

The Buchanans who has earned their money through their ancestors, but “they smashed things up and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness” (179). While Gatsby’s dream was pure in the pursuit of Daisy, did not come by his money through noble means. “Instead of being the warm center of the world, the MIddle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe-so I decided to go East and learn the bond business” (3). At the beginning, this is what drew Nick to the East. Money. A reverse migration. The East was home the ivy league colleges, such as Harvard and princeton, and home to Wall Street. The booming business of the stock market during the twenties. Everyone that NIck knew was in the stock market. “ That’s my Middle West … the thrilling returning trains of my youth, … After Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction” (176). The further East the morals became looser. Nick describing the West, reminiscing his youth, is much more pleasant than his new outlook on the East. Nick realizes the story is about the West, Westerners who could not cope

“The arrangement lasted five years, during which … the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man” (100-101). This is the time that changed Gatz, the dreamer, into Gatsby, the achiever. Those five years spending time with his best friend, whom he met by chance, nourished and exploited his talents to become what he desired. “Five years next November” (87). It has been five years, Gatsby has waited five years, to meet Daisy. The chances of meeting NIck, that bridge that connects the two over that “Sound”. Gatsby's dream is right in front him. “About five o’clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light. Wilson’s glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, … he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg” (159). God’s favor is not only for Gatsby. This is the moment that inspires Wilson to kill Gatsby, like a prophet hearing God’s word.Since The advertisement is a symbol of God, this aligns with the time and Wilson’s actions. “By the time I had the number it was long after five, and no one answered the phone” (165). After Gatsby’s death, Nick’s futile attempts of obtaining bodies for the funeral were just that. Long after grace, there is nothing left of Gatsby except the novel. Past that time, it begins to rain on the solitary funeral for loved ones, and what the outcomes is when one loses God’s