Gatsby

[riggins]

Hey!
Has anyone read Gatsby?
I have to write an essay and i am really struggling.

2. Examine the last page of the novel. Fitzgerald writes, "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—” Why does Fitzgerald leave this sentence unfinished? What does Nick think will happen one fine morning? Are hopes and dreams always centered on a future belief? Is this more important than the actual satisfaction of one’s desires? Why or why not?

Could you give some ideas?

[UlyssesE]

Are hopes and dreams always centered on a future belief? Is this more important than the actual satisfaction of one’s desires?

I took it to mean something like this. Wanting something, working for it, desiring it, dreaming of it, is a powerful driver. It can make someone do great things. Sometimes what we fantasize about is just as good as we imagined, but mostly it is not. Leaving the sentence unfinished could hint at the ephemereal quality of many extraordinary goals.

[Eiseabhal]

It's an optimist's view of life. One day I'll fulfill my desires. No matter how tantalisingly out of reach they remain right now I'll catch em up by determination. I guess Nick sees Gatsby as a seeker and one not likely to be cast down by reverses no matter how opposed to reality that might be.

[Trevor Gower]

It's been a long time since I've read the book, but I recall feeling that the apparent optimism of the words was rather belayed by the actual circumstances and took the final bit to be ironic. Anyone who discusses trying to catch a receding future typically is suggesting the futility of the act, either pessimistically or as an ongoing act of being. I'm not sure that Nick really has a idea at all as to what might happen "one fine morning", unless there is evidence somewhere else in the text that he does. The biggest dreamer and fastest chaser of the story is dead and Nick is contemplating a green light across the water, which he is separated from, not lending itself to a sense that the dreams will ever actually be achieved.

In this light (mine, not the green one) I felt that the rather impassioned description of the chase was contrasted with a marked drop-off when an actual completion is contemplated. "We believe it! We'll chase it! And one day we'll....ummm...."

This doesn't mean Fitzgerald would be pessimistic about the whole matter, as one can quite optimistically point to ever receding horizons, but there does seem to be a certain mockery of American optimism in regards to goals, progress, and the future, if not our laudible enthusiasm.

[Emil Miller]

It represents the triumph of hope over experience: the feeling that, although we know the desired objective will not be achieved we, nevertheless, hope that 'one fine day' it will be.