Life is like a body of water: unpredictable. Nick Carraway starts the narration of The Great Gatsby with, “In my younger and more vulnerable years…” I’ve come to realize the story is greatly about how the past affects our present and our identities. The past is something that affects everything we do. We learn what to take from it and what to leave behind. It’s towards the end of my sophomore year, and like the Native Americans, I have to decide what to take with me and what to leave behind. On Thursday, August 17, the Smithville High School building was freshly covered in welcome back decorations with the “Warrior Strong” theme in every hallway, and I was feeling pretty confident and relaxed. Unsurprisingly, the first day of school was filled …show more content…
As a community, we cheered for our Warriors and raised money to help the city of Smithville, Texas. At the game, I was surrounded by friends. The football team won their game that night, causing everyone to feel like a winner, except the other team. I was definitely a winner when my mom came through with something for me to wear to the homecoming dance. The torso part of the dress was white lace. The bottom half flowed and was a cream color. I had shoes that were jewel encrusted that exposed my toes. I spent more time on my hair and makeup than I did last year because I found myself unhappy with how they looked last year due to the amount of time I gave myself. I bravely went by myself, having faith that it would turn out okay. It was at homecoming that I watched my friends enter together, dance together, and not care that I wasn’t a part of their group that night. I was offered to dance with them a couple of times which I did accept, but the thought of their offers being out of pity and not desire for me to be with them didn’t sit well with me. The person I called my longtime best friend did not put in the effort a best friend should include me. At the beginning of the night a requested a picture with him, but by the end of the night, I no longer wanted one. I found other friends throughout the night. I was a message in a bottle never getting to the person it was …show more content…
December, a month representing holidays and my birthday, also represents cold and ending. December loomed with ending events for classes. I had dipped my toe into challenging classes, fell in, and regretted even thinking about removing my shoe. I now had no excuse for avoiding the requirement of going to a debate tournament. I had a speech piece I had not been practicing because I stood and yelled at a wall so often in my previous fifteen years of life. I was very uncomfortable with the concept no matter how much I understood the purpose. I stressed about it during the three days I practiced. I went and was proud of my performance, with the fact that I had only practice three times before going in mind. The following week consisted of me worrying about how to present without my partner at the Green-Tie Affair FBLA event for Intro to Business. My partner had done the absolute bare minimum on our project. She showed up. It irritated me that she actually knew our project well because it made her seem that she actually did a fair amount of work on it. I’m thankful that she showed up though. We won the best presentation in our
Throughout F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work The Great Gatsby, Nick Caraway undergoes a large transformation. His character arc demonstrates the negative effects of being part of a rich and privileged society, and that even though the 1920’s era looks beautiful and fun, a great many of its inhabitants were empty. Nick Caraway starts the novel hopeful, but as he is exposed to the amoral culture of the rich socialites and businessmen, he becomes cynical, bitter, and he abandons his habits of honesty, and reserving judgment.
In chapter 6 Gatsby finally decides to tell Nick about the truth of his past and his less fortunate beginning. James Gatz, his younger self before deciding to be successful, finds himself hopeful for a new start once meeting his mentor Dan Cody. As they meet on his yacht on Lake Superior, this is the first time Gatsby, his new alter-ego, has flourished “... at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career--when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior”(Fitzgerald 104). Gatsby’s description of this pivotal event in his life demonstrates his feeling of a fresh start. The fact that they met on a boat overseas, explains the significance the water will have throughout his life and most of all at the end of his life.. The water in this chapter has been a good thing for Gatsby and in that moment water has given him only hope and optimism for the future. Towards the end of the novel not only did Gatsby have good luck with water in his life, water also turned out to be misfortunate for him. As the story goes on and Gatsby moves across the Sound from Daisy, the only thing separating him and his goal is that giant body of water. Though at this time he still has a confidence about achieving this goal, but that
. . . And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald, 180). Throughout the novel, Gatsby constantly tries to resurface his past, never accepting his current situation. In a way, Gatsby ruins his future by constantly glorifying and trying to bring up the past. This is partly due to his quick transition to becoming rich [quick transition to wealth?] and his vying for goals he will never achieve. Gatsby’s changes in character led to his death because of how he tried to fit in to a new society and an idealized view of his past.
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick’s unreliability as a narrator is blatantly evident, as his view of Gatsby’s actions seems to arbitrarily shift between disapproval and approval. Nick is an unreliable and hypocritical narrator who disputes his own background information and subjectively depicts Gatsby as a benevolent and charismatic host while ignoring his flaws and immorality from illegal activities. He refuses to seriously contemplate Gatsby’s negative attributes because of their strong mutual friendship and he is blinded by an unrealized faith in Gatsby. Furthermore, his multitude of discrepancies damage his ethos appeal and contribute to his lack of dependability.
Think about being separated from the one you love. You thought this person would be in your life forever and always. You may have spent days and weeks thinking and planning your future together, but then one day they disappear from your life. That person has moved on, and chose to live a life that no longer including you. It would be assumed in most cases that the love of your life is no longer the person they were before, so should you stick around and try to win them back? In the case of Gatsby and Daisy, Gatsby did not realize Daisy would be different, and although he still thinks he is in love with Daisy, is he in love with her for who she is now, or the idea of everything she used to be the answer may shock you, and this is all due to the unreal expectations he has for her to fill. Because Gatsby is not in love with who she is at the time they are reunited. Instead, he is caught up in the idea of who she used to be. The actions of Gatsby, how he talks about her, and the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy once they are back together again show who Gatsby is really in love with, and that is the old Daisy.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a motif of “unrequited desire” runs deep through the novel, and while the main characters exemplify this theme, the fact that the minor characters also demonstrates this unreturned respect suggests that the motif runs deep in the novel. These minor characters include the girls in yellow at Gatsby’s parties, who fail to gain the recognition they desire from the wealthy. Also through the different minor characters and especially the McKees, Fitzgerald illustrates different methods that the minor characters attempt, yet fail, to gain acknowledgment. Besides the behaviours of the characters, the time of appearance for the characters also becomes significant, as Catherine, who fails to achieve recognition
Jay Gatsby is a man who lives a life of lies and confusion. He is the novel’s title character.
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses many motifs in The Great Gatsby to convey all sorts of different
Twain, Mark. "Revised Catechism." Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays: 1891-1910. New York: Library of America, 1992. Print.
in a less clear manner that forces readers to pay attention and reflect on his meaning behind his writing. When Nick ponders on Gatsby’s death and what he may have felt at the time, he thinks of how Gatsby is going to “A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, [drift] fortuitously about… like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees” (Fitzgerald 161). In this metaphor, Gatsby is described as heading to a new world, an unknown afterlife, where his spirit will continue chasing his dreams, forever unable to reach them as he drifts aimlessly for eternity. Fitzgerald also ends the book with a metaphor of how “...to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further… And one fine morning ― So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald 180). The metaphor depicts humans as boats, trying to push against the currents that sway their movements, beating into each other, never allowing any advance towards the wishes a person strives to accomplish. As the waves of currents and problems come crashing on each individual and they try to struggle against one another, nothing can move forward; a boat can try to trudge through, but it may also sink, for sometimes it’s the challenging wave is too high and the boat isn’t strong enough to overcome
Dwelling on the past will make the future fall short. When longing for the past one often fails to realize that what one remembers is not in actuality how it happened. These flashbulb memories create a seemingly perfect point in time. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s modernist novel the Great Gatsby, the ill-fated Jay Gatsby wastes the present attempting to return back to that “perfect” time in past. Acknowledging the power of the imagination, Nick states that, “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 101). Nick realizes that because the past is irretrievable, Gatsby’s struggle, though heroic, is foolish. Gatsby’s great expectations of Daisy leads to great disappointments. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald tries to instill his
In the story “The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald the reader is told a story through the eyes of the narrator Nick. Nick has many friends and acquaintances in the story, but the most important being Gatsby and Tom. Throughout the story Gatsby’s characterization is made to make him look like the protagonist while Tom’s is to make him look like that antagonist. However, while we see the story through Nick’s eyes the reader is actually seeing the opposite. Nick agrees with Gatsby’s actions more than Tom’s which starts to create a bias. This makes it very easy for the reader to instantly dislike Tom’s character and side with Gatsby. However, the reader does not always think about the situation without the bias giving them an illusion of what is really happening. Even though Gatsby is the main character of the story his antagonistic actions are easily overseen. In the story, Gatsby is deemed the antagonist due to his intent of stealing Daisy from Tom.
First of all, I did not read this book in agony thinking about all of the sexist things going on. I rather enjoyed the book a ton and am extremely glad to be officially part of the world that has read The Great Gatsby. After thoroughly thinking about the equality that is so well stated in this novel, I have become more and more heated of the topic of equality in The Great Gatsby.
“I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality or speech just missed being absurd.” (48)
During September 19th, 2017 at 7:30 Tiempo Libre a Three-time Grammy-nominated music group performed at the Hewitt Union Ballroom. Tiempo Libre performed at many events such as concert halls, jazz clubs, festival stages and dance venues. Tiempo Libre is unique by presenting its tropical music featuring an enchantment mix of jazz harmonies, classical music and seductive Latin rhythms. Surprisingly the band members started off working with classical music. “All the members of the band, we started together in the same school.