Significance Of The Past In The Great Gatsby

Former president John F. Kennedy once said that “change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” This statement is very true because some people that never move on from something sad tend to be depressed. There are also other people that do not believe that the past is gone, and think that things never changed. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby resembles the second kind of person as Gatsby fails his dream of being with a woman, Daisy, because he is misleading, and unable to recreate his past. Gatsby and Daisy are never able to be together because of the time they lost. Gatsby’s plan to meet up with Daisy takes five years, because they have parted ways and met other people. One part of Gatsby’s plan to meet up with Daisy is moving into a house close to Daisy in hopes that they would run into each other somewhere. Another step is throwing huge parties every weekend expecting Daisy “to wander into one of his parties, some night” (Fitzgerald 79). Gatsby is trying to recreate his past by
throwing parties, wishing Daisy would stop by one. Unfortunately for Gatsby, Daisy never does, due to things that Gatsby cannot control. By the time he finally sees Daisy, she is a married woman. Daisy, however, does fall in love with Gatsby again. It is undeniably confusing as Daisy explains, “I did love [Tom] once - but I loved [Gatsby] too” (Fitzgerald 132). Daisy never quite gets over Gatsby as she loves him while she is married to Tom. On the other hand, this devastates Gatsby. Although Daisy loves Gatsby the whole time, Gatsby’s impression was that Daisy never loved Tom at all, but as he discovers, she did. The past was gone forever the moment Daisy had fallen in love with Tom, because at that point in time, Daisy had moved on from life with Gatsby. Too much time had passed and Daisy could not keep waiting for Gatsby. As well as loss of time,Gatsby and Daisy cannot be together because of Gatsby’s lying. Secondly, Gatsby’s lying prevents himself from reaching his dream of being with Daisy.
Gatsby lies to be with Daisy, when really it hinders his chances of being with Daisy. Throughout the novel, Gatsby continues to deceive everyone. He lies about where he went to college and how he got his money. Gatsby tries to seem like this amazing man so that Daisy will want to be with him. It works at first, but then when Tom announces, “I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong” Daisy feels uneasy about Gatsby and has second thoughts about being with him (Fitzgerald 133). Daisy no longer thinks of Gatsby as this incredible guy who is madly in love with her. There are now too many uncertainties for Daisy to ever be with Gatsby. Daisy does not know who the real Gatsby is because of his lies. Gatsby is never able to be with Daisy because it is too late, and because of his
lies. Gatsby’s inability to recreate his past leads him off the track of achieving his dream. Gatsby is never fully able to grasp that the past is gone and he continues to look to it. As Gatsby is consumed by his dream, he gets further and further from reality. Fitzgerald warns the reader about living in the past, as John F. Kennedy advises the reader to look into the future.