Gatsby: Stuck in the Past

"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 -- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning --

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (The Great Gatsby, 180).

Thus ends The Great Gatsby . . . (in your pants).

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." What I wouldn't give to be able to write sentences like that.

The most recent AP prompt asks about the "illuminating incident" of a novel. In Gatsby, it's difficult for me to choose just one illuminating moment, because there are tons of them. You've got the fact that Gatsby is a bootlegger, the death of Myrtle Wilson, the revelation that every single freaking thing that Gatsby does is for Daisy, the moment when Gatsby decides to take the blame for Myrtle's death, and of course, the twin deaths of Gatsby and Wilson. But I'm going to choose just one, and it's going to be . . . wait for it . . .

Gatsby's death. Shocking, I know.

We can't repeat the past. I think that's the major theme of the novel, and Gatsby never gets the hang of that idea. For Gatsby, his passion -- his entire life -- is for that green light, for Daisy Buchanan. But that passion destroys his entire life. Wilson believes (with a little help from the lovely Tom Buchanan) that Gatsby both had an affair with Myrtle AND ran over her with his car. The big irony here is that Gatsby actually didn't do either of those things, but he's dead anyway. And Wilson, too. And also Myrtle.

I want to say more, but everything I say pales in comparison to what Fitzgerald says. That last chapter in which nobody showed up to Gatsby's funeral seriously got to me. Anyway, here's a creepy picture of the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg: