The Beauty of Gatsby

After reading The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it’s come to my attention that many quotes have deep, significant meaning throughout the book. Like all literature, quotes have metaphors and deeper meanings that you need to read between the lines to figure out. Therefore, for the most beautiful quote of the novel, I picked the last line of the last chapter. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”. I believe this is the most beautiful quote of the book because it truly sums up Gatsby’s journey and brings everything full circle. The part of the quote “So we beat on, boats against the current” demonstrates how Gatsby was chasing Daisy ‘against the current’ as her name symbolizes via her unattainability by having gold at her core. Against the current, meaning that he was trying to make something work that was never meant to be. As for the last part of the quote: “…borne back ceaselessly into the past”, he obviously died and nothing that he did or went through was important anymore, and just disappeared into history. On the same page, it also states that “Gatsby believed in the green light” which sums up the whole journey and the purpose of the characters in The Great Gatsby, as well as the people in the 1920s in general. Because everybody’s seems to be working towards something (usually materialistic) in Gatsby’s case it was money, but for the purpose of winning over Daisy. I really like how the quote at the end sums up how he did all that work, made all that money, proved to her that he was worthy, and then he died anyways, and all that became pointless, and like the book states ‘borne back ceaselessly into the past’. The quote shows the bigger picture of life, materialism, money, goals, and the purpose of having goals. I think the quote sums up the beauty of The Great Gatsby and the message that it presents to people in general, which ties into the meaning of like, which is a beautiful phenomenon that is present (and wasted) in the novel.