“‘ 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 116). The Great Gatsby by F. Scott F. Scott Fitzgerald has many themes within it and the purpose of this paper is to analyze what theme is established by a characters view of the past. Jay Gatsby displays a longing towards the past throughout the book and this establishes a theme in the work. Gatsby longs to have the past back with Daisy. After one of Gatsby’s parties, Gatsby and Nick are talking about Daisy and the past. “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide
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After Gatsby’s death, Nick ends the book with this passage, “...I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of he republic rolled on under the night” (189). This shows that Gatsby wanted to pursue his dream of living in the past with Daisy so bad it obscured him from realizing that the past was behind him. The past was unattainable by Gatsby and consequently, it lead to unfulfillment in his life. The way Gatsby lived out his future was determined by his past, and therefore he was never really living out his life. The character in The Great Gatsby who best personofied longing towards the past was Jay Gatsby. His longing towards the past established one of the themes in the book: the past. The theme of the past relates to how the past can obscure reality and take away from the present. Gatsbys inability to leave the past behind and move forward with Daisy caused him to feel unfullfillment in his life. Jay Gatsby displays a longing towards the past throughout the book and this establishes a theme in the
After Gatsby’s death, Nick ends the book with this passage, “...I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of he republic rolled on under the night” (189). This shows that Gatsby wanted to pursue his dream of living in the past with Daisy so bad it obscured him from realizing that the past was behind him. The past was unattainable by Gatsby and consequently, it lead to unfulfillment in his life. The way Gatsby lived out his future was determined by his past, and therefore he was never really living out his life. The character in The Great Gatsby who best personofied longing towards the past was Jay Gatsby. His longing towards the past established one of the themes in the book: the past. The theme of the past relates to how the past can obscure reality and take away from the present. Gatsbys inability to leave the past behind and move forward with Daisy caused him to feel unfullfillment in his life. Jay Gatsby displays a longing towards the past throughout the book and this establishes a theme in the