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The role of past and memory in The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby is a novel of past
"He talked about the past, and gathered that he wanted to recover something"
- Green Light
- Eyes of Dr. Eckelburg
- Gatsby's Mansion
Symbols of memory and past:
"He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way... and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far way, that might have been the end of a dock (Page 21)"
"Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of the that light had now vanished forever... Now it was again just a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.(Page 93)"
At the end of the novel Nick finishes the book with these words,
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (Fitzgerald, 180)
"Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice... and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumpling ground." (page 24)
"Gatsby bought that house so that daisy would just be across the bay." (page 78)
"Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more...A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heavy excitement: "There are only pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired" (79).
Jay Gatsby
Jay Gatsby is a person who's past haunt him every single day. Everything he did and does in his life now is directly related to the events of his past. From trying to win back Daisy, to inheriting money from his dead family.
But he isn't truly concerned with money, but rather winning back the girl of his dream. He's so stuck in the past that he can't bring himself to find someone else or somewhere else to live a new life.
The amount of money he gets does not matter without Daisy. What Gatsby doesn't understand is how to live in the now and the foreseeing future.