The Great Gatsby

I don't think so. I had thought it was just a sad romance, but it's so much more than that. It's about a man chasing after a dream, a lost dream called Daisy. He does not know that time cannot be unwound.


His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock... Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place (86). 
--F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

When Gatsby uneasily rests his head on the wall, he inadvertently leans on the clock, and accidentally drops it only to catch it riskily the last moment. Time for Gatsby is no longer functioning properly because of his strife to compensate the time lost in search of Daisy, in search of wealth, in search of his American Dream. And in this moment when he finally meets Daisy after five years, Gatsby is out of his time zone. What is even more striking is that the broken old clock is not Gatsby's nor Daisy's, but Nick's. It is also Nick's time that Gatsby attempts to rewind, and time is thus suspended. 


We overlook some things. Like a word misspelt. For Gatsby, he wanted Daisy so much he overlooked time. For me, it is not a matter of overlooking, but choosing to forgo instead.