How Does The Past Change Throughout The Great Gatsby

“The Great Gatsby” is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald set in the 1920’s and is a recollection of a man named Nick Carraway's memories of the summer he met Jay Gatsby the person he could not judge. Jay Gatsby changed the most throughout the novel because He started the novel as a rich and extravagant man with a mysterious background, but it was revealed that he didn't start his life this way, James Gatz was a seventeen-year-old fisherman on Lake Superior who had big dreams that he thought he never could make a reality. But he adopted a persona that modelled the ideal person through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old, and met his good companion and friend Mr. Dan Cody. But towards the end of the book the window that is Jay Gatsby is shattered

Jay Gatsby or as he was originally known as, James Gatz of North Dakota changed his name at the age of seventeen, when he started his career. James Gatz was a boy who spent his time loafing along the beach in the afternoons in a pair of canvas pants and a torn green jersey. But it was Jay Gatsby who borrowed a row boat making a start on his way to a new life.

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.

    The setting of a story is one of the most important components of the entire plot as it sets the tone for how the story is going to end and also how certain characters are going to act. In the novel “The Great Gatsby” the protagonist, Nick Caraway is an ambitious individual who is the neighbour of Jay Gatsby. Nick is very inspired by the way Gatsby lives and how he takes care of himself, but Nick never really attempts to make any type of interactions with him in the beginning of the story. Nick’s character changes entirely when he is invited to one of Mr. Gatsby parties and agrees to help him meet up with Daisy Buchanan after five long years of separation. Nick’s character changes in terms of behaviour, attitude, and relationships when he meets Gatsby and is ambitious to help him and act more like him. Nick’s character does not change immediately when he meets Gatsby, but throughout the course of the story the reader is able to recognize the significant changes.

Everyone knows that people change throughout their lives whether that be looks or character, but how much might you change if you were involved in an illegal business, war, deaths and having more money than most can even imagine? In my opinion, the Great Gatsby was a dramatic love story that told the fictional story of a man and his love for riches and the determination he used to get what he wanted.Throughout the life story in the book “The Great Gatsby” characters change so much from the beginning of the book to the end. In this book you’ll see Nick, Gatsby, and Daisy all express changes in their characters throughout the book.

The past is an idea that develops memories, while also establishing goals for the future. A past molds one’s personality into its unique form, which lasts a lifetime. Thus, it holds an essential role in creating the goals humans possess. In The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald bestows a lost, romantic past on Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald uses the character of Nick Carraway to enhance the overarching theme of his novel: “the past can not be repeated”.

In The Great Gatsby, a prominent underlying theme is self transformation, or the reinventing of oneself. Throughout the book Gatsby is not what he says he is. He made up his whole life story in order to impress a girl he falls in love with before he is sent off to war. Jay Gatsby sets out to completely reinvent himself in every way, starting with his name. Growing up in the midwest, he was James Gatz, son of poor a poor farmer. In the text, the characters that

The past can be a thing that many people want to shield and hide away from because of fear of being embarrassed and ashamed of it. Gatsby from the novel The Great Gatsby is a perfect example of changing one’s character to hide everything from the past to create a perfect future and present.

One of the reasons why wealth is involved in Gatsby’s life is because he is spending his own money on things that aren’t necessary. Nick was explaining how he didn’t see a party one Saturday night, “It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night”

Throughout our lives we have to deal with the past events we have done. In many novels this appears to be a big factor in what they will eventually grow into. In the novel The Great Gatsby, the character with the biggest impact in this topic.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him.

It is revealed that James Gatz created the persona of Jay Gatsby. As the novel continues it becomes apparent that James Gatz no longer exists and that Gatz has completely internalised Jay Gatsby making it his true identity. This appears to have damaging effects on Gatsby that we find out throughout the novel, however Gatsby appears to be in denial about these

Someone’s past can affect a person in many ways. The past makes the person that they are right now, and they change through experiences, decisions, and thoughts. People tend to learn from experiences and they take them forward in their future. In the story, “The Great Gatsby,” Jay Gatsby Went through a lot of experiences and decisions to Make him the sympathetic millionaire he becomes. Gatsby, who was before called James Gatz, was the Son of shiftless farm people from North Dakota.

Why is affluence so significant? It was not always this way. For hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies, personal properties were insignificant or even disadvantageous unless it was food. For the sake of development and standards of life, this had to change. As wealth gained in value, people also lived better, longer lives, but at a certain point, it began to manipulate the society around it. Some may argue that this occurred around the 1920’s in America. The changes of this time were monumental. People were moving to cities in large numbers, the party lifestyle was adopted by men and women alike due to dramatic social change, and the economy was booming, they were not called “the roaring 20’s” for nothing. The large economy enabled people to gain more wealth than ever. A multitude of people, primarily in older generations, did not encourage this lifestyle, finding it fake, licentious, flashy, and unchristian. This disapproval of change is apparent in The Great Gatsby due to Nick’s distaste for the frivolous and gaudy lifestyles of the East and West Eggers and Gatsby in particular. This distaste, also conveyed heavily by the author, is most significantly formed around the iniquitous value of money and adultery. Ergo, In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that Modern America has become irrationally focused upon immorality and wealth rather than the true American values of hard work and faith, which is demonstrated through the motif of the colour

“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.