Gatsby's trajectory

(dredged up from comment on defunct website, to one a little less defunct)

Sparks, or winks, and circular reasoning made elliptical—The Great Gatsby as orrery: Daisy coming from day’s-eye is a commonplace. But, as disaster comes from “bad star”, with the force of ill omen, the association of Gatsby with a comet (perhaps Wolf-Harrington? [initially known as Wolf]) is introduced early and reinforced often:

“... I realized by some unmistakable sign than an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon ...”

“... foul dust that floated in the wake of his dreams ...”

“He literally glowed ...” at his nearest approach to Daisy.

“‘My house looks well, doesn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘See how the whole front of it catches the light.’”

Leaving Louisville: “The track curved and now it was going away from the sun, which, as it sank lower, seemed to spread itself in benediction over the vanishing city where she had drawn her breath. He stretched out his hand desparately, as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.” (Note that not only is the track analagous to a comet’s path, but that ‘it sank lower’ ambiguously refers to the track as well as the sun. And of course there’s the ladder to the stars ...)

Gatsby’s progression amid the planetary system of other characters (and Nick’s observation of it) may be plotted (exercise left to the rereader).