"The Great Gatsby" Essay

Fitzgerald's reflective hopelessness expresses that the world, now cluttered and gloomy, has lost its opportunity to get to the promising future. No matter how hard we try, we cannot make the future what we want it to be, we have already passed the best times.

The diction used in the passage shows polar opposites. The new world is "inessential," "dark," "obscure." The old "island" was "flowered," a "green breast" with "enchanted" opportunities. It was full of beautiful nature, hopeful dreams, wonderful possibilities. But in the new world nothing seems possible: everything is very gloomy, brooding, negative. There used to be such a beautiful place, but it is gone now. It has been replaced with the "inessential" things of the new world.

In the last two paragraphs Fitzgerald uses syntax and metaphor to pin down his point: we are trying so hard to get to the future, but we keep getting pushed back. We won't make it. We are "boats against the current;" no matter how hard we try we just keep losing ground. We can't seem to go forward. Right before he uses this metaphor he uses really powerful syntax. Right in the middle of a very positive, powerful, pleasing sentence, he stops. He doesn't even finish his thought. The beginning of the sentence expresses the positive attitude that we have to have to try to make it to the future, but the abrupt stop shows his pessimistic attitude towards the future. The hyphenated stop proves that he thinks we will never make it to a good, happy future; we have already passed the best of times.

We are trying to get the best out of the future, but according to the passage Fitzgerald believes that the best time was the past, and the future is impossible to achieve. He has no hope for us to have a good future, because the past was such a wonderful place. But we continue to try to achieve our dream, even if it is long gone.