The Great Gatsby offers a larger-than-life picture of a life spun out of control by excess. If temperance is “selfless self-preservation,” then Gatsby is the epitome of intemperance: “self-destruction through the selfish degradation of the powers which aim at self-preservation.”27 Nick recognizes the fatal nature of this intemperate world when he observes that in it “are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”28 Consumption does indeed consume us.
