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Essay On The Future In The Great Gatsby

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“The orgastic future [...] year by year recedes before us” and the past consumes us with its “moments of hope and promise and wonder” (Fitzgerald 180; Parr 76). To be human is to be unfulfilled and to long for the unreachable, but such aspirations often prevent one from fully living in the present. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, an obsession with the inaccessible past characterizes the lives of many of those inhabiting a “universe of ineffable gaudiness” (Fitzgerald 99). Using a motif of water, Fitzgerald traces character Jay Gatsby’s relationship with the past, to reveal that those who reside in an acquisitive world and try to escape the past will remain there if they mistake it for a viable future. In the short term, they often recognize and attempt to overcome the shortcomings of their past lives. Should they confuse the past with the future, however, they will cease to make progress on their temporal voyage into the future. Ultimately, these individuals will come to believe in their capability of living in the past, becoming so delusional that they actually end up lingering there forever.
Initially, Gatsby's actions on Lake Superior highlight both his assertion of control over his life and his endeavor to escape his roots. When a young James Gatz, lounging on the sandy beach of Lake Superior, witnesses Dan Cody's yacht “drop anchor,” he “borrow[s] a row-boat” and “pull[s] out” to the yacht, “inform[ing]” Cody of an imminent storm (Fitzgerald 98).

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