Gatsby Trapped in the Past

This passage from the Great Gatsby particularly spoke to me,

“As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 95).

For the sake of my readers amusement I will only pick out a couple lines and explain what they mean to me and their significance to the novel.

The line, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when daisy tumbled short of his dreams…his illusion” summarizes Gatsby’s fascination with the past and all the expectations he has of Daisy and their possible new life. Gatsby is stuck in the time when he fell in love with Daisy, her money, and the security she could provide him, and he is still hanging onto that theory that Daisy is everything he could want in a wife. However, Daisy is not the perfect woman he thinks she is, and it is not her fault but Gatsby’s false hope he holds on to. Fitzgerald uses word choice to describe how the characters are acting or feeling. For example, he writes “tumbled” to illustrate how Gatsby is still falling for Daisy, but when someone falls it usually results in someone getting hurt.

We’ve all heard the saying “if we set our mind to it, we can do it”. This is like the offensive way of making your life the best it can be; make it happen yourself. However, when Nick says, “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his heart”, it is taking more of the defensive side. Nothing can get in the way of what we have deeply engraved in our heart because we will always protect what is important to us. Just like how nothing will persuade Gatsby to stop pursuing Daisy. This can be seen either positively or negatively but in my opinion, it shows the beauty and the struggle and perseverance we give to improve our lives.