"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future
that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but
that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out
our arms farther.... And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
This quote was taken from the American classic The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. Every time I read or hear the quote it causes me to smile with tears in my eyes. For it truly shows what life is about. The story of The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway and tells the life of his neighbor Jay Gatsby during a summer of early 1920's. A majority of the plot is a web of lies and people trying to hind who they are. It can be seen in the illustration below.
For after Daisy and Tom were married, his journey to create a new person started to fade out of the picture and a journey similar to the one in the quote started to come in the forefront. Everything Gatsby did from that point on surround getting Daisy back and going back in time to the first time they met. In fact he held the parties in hope that she would come over. He tried with everything in his power to reach the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. The green light was to Gatsby his dreams for Daisy and him in the future. Yet the green light was unattainable for he was moving against the current into the past. Within the past is where his vision of life with Daisy lied. As Nick observed in this quote, Gatsby started to come to this realization when Daisy came over to his house, "Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one." (Fitzgerald, 100)
The life of Gatsby being trapped in the past and being able to fully live for present and future may be a life of melancholy. Yet consider the lives of Tom and Daisy in which they barely glance at the past. Nick perhaps described them the best, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."(Fitzgerald, 191) When I read the quote at the end of the book I am reminded how to live your life so that you can smile: remember the past, live in the present and look to the future.
To read The Great Gatsby you can download a PDF from Planet Ebook
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
This quote was taken from the American classic The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. Every time I read or hear the quote it causes me to smile with tears in my eyes. For it truly shows what life is about. The story of The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway and tells the life of his neighbor Jay Gatsby during a summer of early 1920's. A majority of the plot is a web of lies and people trying to hind who they are. It can be seen in the illustration below.
Gatsby lived his life in such a way that he can symbolize the past. The transformation from James Gatz a poor boy from the Midwest to the great Jay Gatsby surrounded his belief that you can change or the past and create a new person. This belief was revealed to Nick, after Daisy came to one of Gatsby's famous and lavish parties, when Gatsby and Nick have this conversation, "‘I wouldn’t ask too much of her,’ I ventured. ‘You can’t repeat the past.’
‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’"( Fitzgerald, 118) When Gatsby met Daisy for the first time he truly became Jay Gatsby. For after Daisy and Tom were married, his journey to create a new person started to fade out of the picture and a journey similar to the one in the quote started to come in the forefront. Everything Gatsby did from that point on surround getting Daisy back and going back in time to the first time they met. In fact he held the parties in hope that she would come over. He tried with everything in his power to reach the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. The green light was to Gatsby his dreams for Daisy and him in the future. Yet the green light was unattainable for he was moving against the current into the past. Within the past is where his vision of life with Daisy lied. As Nick observed in this quote, Gatsby started to come to this realization when Daisy came over to his house, "Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one." (Fitzgerald, 100)
The life of Gatsby being trapped in the past and being able to fully live for present and future may be a life of melancholy. Yet consider the lives of Tom and Daisy in which they barely glance at the past. Nick perhaps described them the best, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."(Fitzgerald, 191) When I read the quote at the end of the book I am reminded how to live your life so that you can smile: remember the past, live in the present and look to the future.
To read The Great Gatsby you can download a PDF from Planet Ebook
