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In the final section of Chapter 9, Fitzgerald uses Nick to summarize the novel's main themes and extend their significance. The theme of hope and dreams--especially Gatsby's dream of loving Daisy-- has been tied throughout the novel to the theme of time, as Gatsby struggles to recreate the past in the future. Now Nick strengthens the ties between those two themes by applying them to the story of America, speculating that, just as Gatsby infused Daisy …

…about the principles that have run through his story, mulling over time and dreams and wealth and America, but his conclusion--despite its standing as one of the most famous passages in American literature--is not the final word on that story. Time, dreams, and nations are grand subjects that interrelate throughout the novel in complex ways; Nick's final thoughts strengthen and broaden some of those interrelations, but they do not work as a consistent comprehensive doctrine.