Great Gatsby Response

Fitzgerald's saddened, almost hopeless reflection on mankind's push into the future shows his main point of the futility of that very act. He seems to convey the message that despite how hard we as humans try to force our way into the future and the prosperity that it will bring, we will never create as good a world as the one we destroyed in the attempt.

Fitzgerald's final lines in the passage illustrate this point of futility perfectly. He speaks of "the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us" and of our attempts to reach it. He claims that "it eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther." He seems to create an illusion of optimism, believing that the grand future that awaits us is within our grasp. "And one fine morning--" He realizes that the future, the life we so desperately crave will never happen, that we will fight and fight for it, but all in hopeless futility. And so, dreams broken, "we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past," never to see the future of which we dreamed.

His claims that we destroyed the true paradise in the attempt to bring ourselves into our own is brings upon even more hopelessness and desperation. He claims that "the inessential houses began to melt away until I gradually became aware of the old land here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes--a fresh, green breast of the new world." He speaks of "its vanished trees" that had "once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams." He believes, almost regrettably, that "for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent" and that we were "face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." We destroyed the last thing on earth that could possibly have served as a veritable paradise so that we could fight in vain to create our own.

Fitzgerald has revealed a hopeless and depressing truth about the destructive nature of man, and how futile our attempts to be constructive often are. The very idea that we destroyed what we sought to create for ourselves is chilling, to say the least. Perhaps one day we will evolve beyond our senseless need to destroy, though that day seems frighteningly far away.