After a dramatic chain of events, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ends with a melancholy note. Gatby’s death has a great effect on Nick, who held in the very last paragraph of the novel:
“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 — to-morrow 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 is possibly one of the meaningful phrases written in literature. Many an author has added influential sayings into their works: Shakespeare’s “All’s well that ends well”, Moby Dick and “Call me Ishmael, etc; but none of them are as relatable to the audience as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final say in The Great Gatsby.
Everyone in their life makes mistakes, and everybody has bad things happen to them. However, what Nick Carraway says in chapter 9 changes a reader’s perspective on life. Mr.Carraway, in a way, teaches us how to deal with events which have or could happen, that could shatter our lives from misery. Nick is informing us that we should not live in despair and sadness caused by the past, but instead should carry on with the future with a new outlook. “To-morrow we will run faster, streth out our arms farther” is definetely an encouraging description of how to live life: that every day is has potential to spring up into success and happiness, and that the sorrowful or empty past should not stop us from achieving what we want.
The second part of the quote however, gives a much different meaning than the opening statement. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” , could only be understood by somebody who has already lived life for a long time. Young people cannot relate to this part of the quote because they have lived little and cannot fathom at how great of a past they had, unless they are nostalgic and thinking about their childhood. However, this part of the excerpt is a portayal of older generations looking back and reminiscing about their past, which is somewhat of a contradiction to the first part of the quote.
Since the two parts of the closing words of Nick Carraway are contradicting each other, we can only combine them and assume that what F. Scott Fitzgerald really means with these words. What the author is probably trying to tell the audience is that although we try to forget the past and live while we’re young, it returns to haunt us when we’re older anyway. In fact, this is true, because as we get older, we tend to have nostalgic thoughts, and we can see this through all of humanity’s works: poetry, art, and etc. Authors, musicians, painters, artists, movie directors, and the common city dweller at one time in their life produces a work that refers to their earlier years. We can never forget the past.
American Literature 