<p>There is an annoying writing question that I'm not quit sure about the explanation, so,would you please explain it to me?</p>
<p>*At the conclusion of the novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner recently (arrived to) New York, (moodily) (watches) the blinking green light at the (tip of) Long Island.</p>
<p>The answer is A-'Arrived to' since it should be 'arrived in', though, is there anything else wrong with verb tense?.. Arrived is past and watches is present. I think that it should be arrived because of recently, but is 'watches' right here?..If so, any sentence about a novel takes present tense or past? does it have to be present since each time we read it, seems like we are reading it in present or that's a wrong concept?..When I asked about an explanation I wasn't convinced enough.</p>
<p>Here's another one:</p>
<p>At the start of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, a boy is born at the exact moment that India attains independence and becoming intimately connected to the fate of the century.</p>
<p>I mean there is no rule that we should use all the tenses in the sentence in the same tense..So, why is here there are two different tenses? I'm so confused with the tenses?</p>
<p>My sense is that you are missing some basic understanding of tenses and their role in a sentence, or in a group of related sentences.</p>
<p>Take the first example. Let me expand it and write it as a sequence of simple sentences.</p>
<p>Nick arrived in New York in July. It is now August. On this day, the 10th day of August, Nick is sitting on the porch and he is looking out to sea. He thinks about what he will do tomorrow. He decides that he will take the ferry back to the City.</p>
<p>I’m telling a story, and it refers to events in the past, the present and the future. This is quite typical for a stroy.</p>
<p>Now I’ll return to the sentence in your post.</p>
<p>The “participle phrase” “recently arrived in New York” modifies Nick. It is doing no more than stating that Nick is now in New York – that he arrived not long ago – perhaps (as in my long winded example) in July. The active verb in the sentence is “watches”. Nick is doing that now, hence the use of the present tense. We can continue the sentence like this:</p>
<p>At the conclusion of the novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner recently arrived in New York, moodily watches the blinking green light at the tip of Long Island while thinking about what he will do tomorrow.</p>
<p>Now the sentence also spans an event in the future.</p>
<p>Your second sentence has a typo – “becoming” is wrong. Perhaps you meant “becomes”. I am not clear as to what you are asking. My sense is that you are expecting rigid rules regarding time events and how they are distinguished in English. You may want to do a basic grammar review on this subject.</p>