I would like to revisit the last page of The Great Gatsby, specifically the portion when Fitzgerald invokes Nick to end the piece. The phrase before the last sentence is is as follows: “And one fine morning——” (189). The imagery is incredibly strong here and I find it easy to imagine the end of a movie production when the narrator ties up all the loose ends. Moreover, I paid great notice to the fact there are two long dashes, rather than just one. Grammatically, the double dash makes no difference. That said, I think Fitzgerald’s inclusion of the double dash is more stylistic. For a novel that is centered around water (water is what separates, and thus keeps balance between West Egg and East Egg; it is also Gatsby’s mode of death), I think these double dashes lend hand to an aquatic theme. If I remember correctly, Carraway speaks this quotation as he looks over what is described to be the Long Island Sound. I think having two dashes mimics the wave-like quality of the water and how just like time, the waves keep coming and going no matter what. Time goes on forever. This eternal theme appropriately premises the last sentence about humans constantly being “borne back ceaselessly into the past” (189).
Does anyone have a similar interpretation?
I think that is a bit of a stretch. The double dash is used repeatedly throughout the novel (166-169 has plenty for example), and so I don’t think it has meaning here based on its presence alone. I would, however, note that the double dash is used most often when somebody gets cut off while speaking. Thinking of it like that, I would argue that its use on the last page indicates Nick having more to say but holding back for some reason. He is a strange narrator, and I would be interested in discussing why he chooses to end the novel in the way he does.