The Great Gatsby: Last Page Review - Rough Draft

Scott Fitzgerald's melancholy lamentations portray his captious view of the human race in their struggle for improvement, or advancement in society. In the passage he is "brooding" over the past, during the bone-chilling winter during "obscurity" of night. His diction paints his surroundings as gloomy, and so lonely that its almost overwhelming. The houses begin "to melt away" and everything around him is "shadowy," making it the perfect place to allow hopelessness to consume the soul. He describes the discovery of the New World, long island a "fresh, green breast," a beautiful part of the female nation as he saw it. She is "fresh", and "green", untainted and unsoiled, pure and nonsexual. A great contrast to the sexuality of the 1920's. In contrast the future that Gatsby struggles so hard to reach is "orgastic," a sexual beast: A sinful creature that should be avoided at all costs. Fitzgerald's extended metaphor continues, as he creates a river of time, one that the human race struggles against "ceaselessly" and to no purpose. Humans become "boats against the current," as time drags them back into the past of simple joys, pure pleasures, and happiness in relationship. The bliss we seek in alcohol, and new fads has "eluded" the human race, and faded into the darkness, just as "the inessential houses began to melt away" into the night. Still, as Fitzgerald has so profoundly noted, "we beat on... borne back ceaselessly into the past."

'My Wood' Response

I agree with the author of My Wood, although I do feel that he does seem to exaggerate the impact of consumerism. Sure, consummerism is a growing problem, but I don't feel that people who buy a lot of... well stuff, will be thrown into the pits of hell. Yes, consummerism does need to be addressed, but lets not be so judgemental.