The Seasons of The Great Gatsby - Post Eleven

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pins the story of Jay Gatsby and Daisy during the summer season, and parallels their love story along with the climax of the summer heat.  The novel also ends with Gatsby's death right as the impending presence of Autumn approaches.  In the beginning of the novel, when we first meet Nick, before Gatsby is seen for the first time, Fitzgerald writes, "And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." The change or progression into the summer opens up the story and thrusts the plot line forward.  It is in the summer weather that Gatsby throws his lavish parties, Jordan and Daisy are able to sit around all day embodying the definition of conspicuous consumption, and Daisy and Gatsby momentarily rekindle their lost love.  The summer seems to represent the rebirth of "life" for the characters of the novel.  During the summer season, the action of the novel takes place, and becomes a transition period.  Nick moves in next to Gatsby, Gatsby finally find's Daisy again, and the characters constantly travel to New York City through the Valley of Ashes.  The summer is a period of movement where the period of time outside the summer becomes stagnant. 

As the summer ends, as the seasons transition into fall, it is then that Gatsby's story falls apart.  While Gatsby is laying in the pool, under the falling Autumn leaves, Wilson shoots Gatsby and then kills himself.  While life began again with the coming of summer, it ends at the coming of autumn.  Because the novel is continually in a state of transition, the summer serves as a bridge that the movement is guided along.