Duality In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces a complex character whose motivations and values are strictly driven by his relationship with the past. Jay Gatsby’s hold on his history is critical to the understanding of the novel as a whole, as well as his personality and the duality in his psyche. Fitzgerald details the struggles of humans as they attempt to attain their goals by both surpassing and reconstructing the past. This past acts as a source of ideas for the future, unescapable, as dreams struggle to turn to reality. In the novel, Gatsby’s past is characterized by the idyllic romanticism of his lover Daisy. This memory of Daisy pervades his future as he aims to recapture a time of innocence, happiness, and idealism. However enraptured …show more content…
Although not as unjudging as he claims to be in the very start of the novel, the reader views Gatsby with Nick’s observing, listening nature. His words do not indicate blind appreciation nor contemptuous cynicism but rather a deferential attitude that persists throughout the novel especially regarding Gatsby’s endeavors. His tone becomes philosophical and wise as he (as Fitzgerald’s voice) suggests that Gatsby lived in the past unable to complete his future. The very last lines of the novel detail his optimism and the futile pursuit of the American dream as the green light across the sound symbolizes. "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 then one fine morning— so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." To Gatsby, this symbol of hope that the green light represented was associated with Daisy as a reminder of the past as well as an opportunity for the future. The metaphoric language proposes that the current pulls them back, preventing them from reaching their goal as they row onward to the brightness of the green light. The narrator compares the light to America and its promise, seemingly born out of the sea to settlers of the past. Gatsby takes great lengths to be noticed by Daisy. He builds his extravagant mansion across from hers in West Egg Village, throwing widely attended parties while remaining a mysterious host. His every action was to live up to the image Daisy had of him when they first met in the summer of 1917, she as a socialite and Gatsby as a young army officer. His time in Louisville represented contentedness and promise of an American dream-like