Ghost Of The Past By George Santayana

Before the world war had started, Gatsby was already in the period of time where he was courting Daisy. However after the war, Gatsby extends his period over time in order to obtain a socially acceptable rank in order to marry Daisy. It was during this period of extending time that Daisy fell under the pressure of her family to marry Tom Buchanan. When Gatsby returns to the United States, he realizes that he had lost Daisy and then proceeds to further increase his social status through bootlegging in the guise of drugstores. It is then during this period that Gatsby wants to erase the five years of time during which he was gone, from not only his life, but also Daisy’s. When Nick retorts to Gatsby’s idea, he exclaims to him “‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’”(Fitzgerald, 110). Near the end of the novel, Gatsby is invited along with Nick to the Buchanon’s for lunch, there, Gatsby sees Daisy and Tom’s child for the first time and Nick describes it as genuine surprise and that he believes that Gatsby “never believed in its existence before” (Fitzgerald, 117). The introduction of Daisy’s daughter

Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.

Fitzgerald reveals the detrimental impacts of living in the past, through the character James Gatz and his numerous flashbacks responsible for Gatz’s development into the character of Jay Gatsby. Gatz invented the character of Gatsby, providing a fallacious back-story, in order to convince himself and hopefully Daisy that there remains a possibility of love despite their difference in economic backgrounds. Nick reveals, “So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this (Platonic) conception he was faithful to the end” (132). Gatsby changed his past, hoping to change the outcome of his future happiness. Fitzgerald reveals Gatsby’s construed misconception of himself through flashbacks in order to emphasize the effect the past has on the present.

Jay Gatsby said “Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!” This simple quote, stated while speaking of his relationship with daisy encompasses his endless efforts in re kindling his past love. He is so invested in fighting for Daisy because he truly believes that the past can be brought back. As if there is no Tom, no child and no responsibilities. The past willingly leads us into the trap of ignorance, that we may return from journeys long and messy to find

The book The Great Gatsby is written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it’s a narrative told from the perspective of Nick Carraway. He tells the story of the tragic life of Jay Gatsby and talks about the society of the wealthy people with high social status. He talks about the conflict between the two huge power Tom and Gatsby, due to their similarity in their money and social status, while they compete for dominance and masculinity by fighting over Daisy. Through Nick’s narration and his close relationship with Gatsby, the readers realize that the motive behind everything that Gatsby does is to win back Daisy’s heart to repeat the past, the first time when he fell in love with Daisy.

Everything Gatsby ever did, his money, fancy dresses, cars, his mansion right across the Daisy’s, all the huge parties. He did it just to impress daisy and so she would notice him. He is trying to change the past, just like those 5 years without her never happened. However, it is impossible and Gatsby was murdered and his fake personality was uncovered.

Fitzgerald believes that the people who pursue the American Dream are never satisfied because they always strive for something more, he shows this through the motif of time. Gatsby is desperate to be back with Daisy, his dream is for him to win Daisy back and have things be like the old times were Tom wasn't a part of Daisy's life: "'Can't repeat the past?'...'Why of course you can!'"(110). Nick unsuccessfully tried to make Gatsby understand the fact that Daisy had moved on, she that she is married, and even has a daughter, he tells Gatsby that he couldn't repeat the past, Gatsby refuses to believe him. Gatsby says that time itself is obsolete if you have tons of money like him, he can make anything happen even repeat the past. At what point

The theme at the heart of the novel “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald lies in the doomed relationship between the protagonist, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Narrated by Nick Carraway, the friend of Gatsby’s whom Gatsby finally confides in at the most tragic moment of his life, the story unfolds against the backdrop of the roaring 20’s.

He fell in love with the wealthy debutante Daisy Fay shortly before he was to leave for war. When Gatsby returned, he discovered that Daisy had married Tom Buchanan, a wealthy Duke University scholar, making him want to achieve his dream even more. This point marks James Gatz’s transformation to Jay Gatsby. From a distance, Gatsby’s imagination was fulfilled by his dream to be with Daisy. Gatsby’s entire life is spent changing and becoming wealthy only so he could become a part of Daisy’s life. Gatsby is so convinced that Daisy is deeply in love with him that Nick Carraway, the narrator, narrates “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved you.” (Fitzgerald 125). This vision of Daisy, his dream, shows how Gatsby cannot tell the difference between dream and reality. Dan Cody, an extraordinarily wealthy old man, shows Gatsby that he can pursue his dream. When Gatsby saw Dan Cody's yacht anchor at a dangerous point in Lake Superior, he saw an opportunity to leave his old life behind and took it. Cody also showed Gatsby that money would help him achieve his dream. Dan Cody acted as a type of mentor for Gatsby. Cody taught Gatsby valuable social lessons. He also improved Gatsby’s understanding of alcohol and the effect it can have on people, as well as how much money a person can make by selling it, which was illegal at the time. Cody’s inspiration and teachings made Gatsby more determined than ever to accomplish his dreams. Later in the novel, Gatsby to Nick Carraway: “Can‘t repeat the past?...Why of course you can!...I‘m going to fix everything just the way it was before....She‘ll see‘‖” (110 - 111). This shows how much Gatsby is willing to change to reach his dream. He is a man of tremendous romanticism, and he has created a vision of Daisy that she could never meet, even if she were perfect, which she is

“In his blue gardens men and women came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (Fitzgerald 39). In his character, his relationships, and his gatherings, Jay Gatsby epitomized the illusion of a perfect romance. When Gatsby and Daisy met in 1917, he was searching for money, but ended up profoundly falling in love with her. “[H]e set out for gold and stumbled upon a dream” (Ornstein 37). Only a few weeks after meeting one another, Gatsby had to leave for war, which led to a separation between the two for nearly five years. As “war-torn lovers” Gatsby and Daisy reach the quintessential ideal of archetypical romance. When Gatsby returned from the war, his goal was to rekindle the relationship he once had with Daisy. In order to do this, he believed he would have to work hard to gain new wealth and a new persona. “Jay Gatsby loses his life even though he makes his millions because they are not the kind of safe, respectable money that echoes in Daisy’s lovely voice” (Ornstein 36). Gatsby then meets Daisy’s cousin, Nick Carraway, who helps to reunite the pair. Finally being brought together after years of separation, Gatsby stops throwing the extravagant parties at his home, and “to preserve [Daisy’s] reputation, [he] empties his mansion of lights and servants” (Ornstein 37). Subsequent to their reconciliation, Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, begins to reveal sordid information about Gatsby’s career which causes Daisy to

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone… just remember that all the people in this world haven‘t had the advantages that you‘ve had.” (F.S. Fitzgerald 1) This quote is really meaningful and I agree with what Nick’s father said. No one has experience the same things as others, there’s no need from judging. In this phrase Nick seems to misinterpret the meaning of the quote, but yet he does understand.

Gatsby was looking around him wildly, as if the past were lurking in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. When Gatsby told Nick how he was going to fix everything just the way it was before, Nick explained, “He talked a lot about the past, and I gather that he wanted to recover something …. He could find out what that thing was…” (Fitzgerald, 110) Jay Gatsby’s life has been confused, disordered, and never made much sense, and being with Daisy could of have fixed that so simple in life. When Daisy married Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby lost a piece of his past that meant more to him than he thought which ended up in effecting his daily

Gatsby’s life after the war is his search for his American Dream, which, in his eyes, culminates in Daisy. Nick observes that Gatsby “found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail” (149). Fitzgerald chooses to compare Gatsby’s

Jay Gatsby, the protagonist in The Great Gatsby, is faced with the struggle of achieving his dream against the reality of the world (Sanders 109). He acquired his wealth through bootlegging and relations with corrupt individuals. However, he tries to preserve his innocence by recreating his past with Daisy (“Fitzgerald F Scott”). The reality of the world leaves Gatsby with the feeling of emptiness and desperation because his life was consumed with overwhelming wealth and a passionate devotion to a relationship with Daisy, only to have it disappear (Dubose 75). Similar to the Lost Generation, at the end of the novel Gatsby realizes the world is full of deception and cruelty, even after earning great wealth (“Lost Generation”). A Lost Generation is defined as having “developed the idiosyncratic and personal manners” and feeling emotionally and spiritually alienated from the previous generations (Stegner 184). Jay Gatsby symbolizes the Lost Generation which F. Scott Fitzgerald connects to the changing social attitudes such as wealth, love, and the corruption of innocence in The Great Gatsby.

On the same page there is a paragraph stating that, “He (Jay Gatsby) talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something…” (Fitzgerald 110). We all have things we wish to change, Jay Gatsby wishes to go back to those days to reclaim Daisy as his one and only love. Since he keeps trying to recover this lost love for Daisy, he is unable to see that he can't make the world go his way, even after waiting for five long years for a change. Daisy moves on and marries Tom, but Jay is unable to accept that and continues to chase