Maybe the most horrific idea in The Great Gatsby is the belief that the past can be repossessed. Gatsby reassures Nick, “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” This utopian and illusionary remark defines Gatsby’s tragedy. His entire character revolves around redoing an event five years ago when Daisy cherished him before war and money parted them. But time, Fitzgerald insists, is not so kind. Daisy is changed. The world is changed. And Gatsby’s failure to accept this is his greatest failure. He buys the house across the bay, has parties for strangers, and builds his fortune all for a moment that no longer exists. The novel depicts time as an inexorable and one-way process. The ticking of the clock when Gatsby and Daisy reunite, the procession of the seasons from summer to autumn, and even the deterioration of the billboard in the Valley of Ashes all work to emphasize the inexorability of change. Gatsby’s mistake is not that he wished too much, but that he wished backwards. He gets memory confused with reality and desire confused with destiny. Fitzgerald is satirizing here this romantic idealism and shows us how clinging to an idealized past prevents us from living in the present. Finally, Gatsby is a prisoner of nostalgia, and his illusion is shattered by the reality of the way time passes. His tragic fate serves as a caution against the danger of romanticizing the past and not letting it go.