Nick Carraway, ever the additional voice of conscience, assures his quixotic friend Jay Gatsby that the past can not be repeated. Nick takes the past for what it is (at least in his eyes) as an indelible, unalterable being. His words are a corollary to Gatsby's five-year-long obsessive endeavor to cajole his former lover, Daisy, into his life once more. The reality is that Daisy is now a wife to Tom Buchanan and a mother to little Pammy. Gatsby refuses to believe that the present is set in stone, holding on instead to the adamant misconception that he can follow through with his relationship with Daisy despite the complications so blatantly embed in her periphery and most notably: the passing of time. Nick sees the world in a more objective manner, through a monochrome filter of sorts. Gatsby, on the other hand, views matters through a kaleidoscope of possibility.
His unwavering optimism makes him seem more vulnerable, exposing holes in his cryptic armor, impugning his sobriquet as "The Great Gatsby". This foreshadows the state Gatsby was in closer to his end. This quote is tantamount to the plot of The Great Gatsby because it lays bare the inner machinations of Gatsby's enigmatic mind throughout the story. It explains the opulence he acquired and the elaborate parties he held, all the while maintaining a cold distance from the chaos in an attempt to foster the disarray confined within his mind.
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