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: : : In the last line of the novel, Fitzgerald writes, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Discuss this line in reference to the themes, characters and situations in the novel : There was a lack of age in one of the responses you received! It is a while since I read Gatsy, about 27 years, and I ain't no English Professor> In fact I hope that learned guy who obviously is who replies to these postings will straighten out my ramblings. But here goes: : Gatsby lived for the past he had with Daisy. He wanted to get back there to that time before it all went wrong and he stopped pursueing his own dreams and wed his dreams to Daisy. He wanted to recreate that past and he thought it would be all OK if he got make to that moment. Remember the shock he felt when he saw Daisy's kid for the first time.He did not until then beleive it existed. Everything he did was about impressing Daisy. : : As someone in their 40s, I would say that we do struggle onwards, in our gyms etc. but actually there is some realisation that we are harking back to an image of our selves some years ago. : Doesn';t it say something about "Tomorrow we will run faster etc, etc and then your quote starts. : I think that the more we fight on and stuggle in life, the greater we may be ( Gatsby is Great I think not because of his riches but because of his Love and his struggle to make an old dream a reality). We may be tragic and ridiculous to struggle against time to others but we are great as well arn't we. Gatsby is a tragic romantic. Doesn't Nick say he is better than anyone else? : Nick Carroway I guess was the most obviously beating against the current and drawn back to the past. : Hey and what about Tom Bucanon. Didn't he reach such an "acute climax at the age of ?21 that everything else afterwards savoured of anticlimax. : We were greater in the past and forefathers were greater in the past, we struggle on to make our own path through life but the current is strong and in the end we have a tendancy to collapse back to the past

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