"He stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward -- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away" (Fitzgerald,26)
This single passage sums up the message of "The Great Gatsby" in very few words. A goal. One that could not be attained. A desire to reach out, and make this light yours. To traverse across darkness to reach an intangible object.
An almost perfect representation of The Roaring Twenties, "The Great Gatsby" is. Throughout this era, the rich only wanted to get richer. To obtain more wealth and money and to feed their lust for something that did not exist. They wanted Perfection. The rich wanted nothing more than perfection. They even went to such great lengths as to separate husband and wife to achieve their own greed. "She's never loved you. She loves me." -Gatsby (137) To accuse a husband that his wife, after years of marriage, never loved him, and only loved you. In modern days this would be seen as ridiculous and absurd but the truth of the matter is that back then, it happened over and over again. People lied their way to what they believed was perfection.
Fitzgerald had the right idea when he created this novel. He correctly portrayed all the human flaws in a span of 10 years in a matter of 181 pages. Beautiful isn't it. The fact that we as humans are so misguided in our lives that authors can create entire stories from our failures. The sad part is that we repeat these failures almost 100 years later. Humans still follow a road of corruption just to reach wealth or power, that "perfection". To steal from others what they themselves don't have. It disgusts me really.
It's currently 12 in the morning and I am also following this path of corruption to perfection. I mean I am giving up sleep, a necessary part of a human life, to "educate" myself so that I can earn a good grade which will then help me get into a good college where I can eventually make tons of money. Beautiful, beautiful money.
We've all experienced failure at some point in our lives. Do you remember what is felt like? To fail? I do. I felt horrible. I hated myself. Failing. What a terrible thing to do. It's like I was almost...human for a second!! I guess what i'm trying to say here is that, there is no such thing as perfection. You can always be a little happier. You can always have a little more of this or that. What matters is that you find yourself in a place where you are comfortable, not perfect. If you are looking for a place in which you are perfect, you'll never find it and you will spend your short life wasting away precious time. Learn to accept failure, grow from it. Don't repeat that another time period which led into war and depression, our Earth cannot handle something like that again. Let human nature take its course and if you fail, well...you fail! Who cares. There is always tomorrow to fix your mistakes but there is never a moment to float yourself in guilt.
I don't understand humans, I really don't. With each relationship I read about, either money, power, or pain was involved and it seems to be the same way today. Now i'm not saying ALL relationships are like this but most of the ones I know are. Kinda depressing. Just recently, my friend broke up with his girlfriend of two years and a week later she asked when they could date again and be a couple once more. This scenario reminds me of a part from "Winter Dreams" by my dead, drunkard friend, Fitzgerald (I recommend reading this short story, very fascinating). "I like the way you love me. Oh Dexter...I wish we could be like that again," (Winter Dreams, 7). BAsically, a guy falls in love with a girl who cheats on him multiple times and then disappears, then returns to him after a long time and says the above quote. I dunno, the whole I know we are broken up but we should get back together thing just seemed too similar between these two accounts of a faulty relationship.
