
“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”
“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”
“Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!”
When F. Scott Fitzgerald penned The Great Gatsby in 1925, I doubt he figured (but probably hoped) his tale of ambition, illusion, and heartbreak would become the next great American classic. And now, you could even say that nearly a century later, The Great Gatsby still reflects today’s society.
Don’t be fooled by the novel’s length, at around 48,000 words, Fitzgerald was able to tap into the tension between illusion and reality, the seduction of wealth, and the heartbreak of chasing a dream that is/was never really real to begin with (sounds a little like today and what we see on social media, doesn’t it.).
Some might say “The Great Gatsby” is a critique of the American Dream, it’s the belief that anyone, regardless of background, can achieve success and happiness through hard work. However, in Gatsby’s world, that dream is poisoned by greed, superficiality, and the reality of class divides. Fast-forward to today, and the same questions swirl. We live in an age of curated online identities, where Instagram feeds and influencers echo Gatsby’s parties: glossy and perfect on the surface, but not often showing the whole picture. “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy,” said character Jordan Baker. This certainly feels like the world of social media–the more likes you get the better you feel about yourself… but how many of your “friends” do you actually know?
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made,” said Nick Caraway and I mean, this depiction of the morally compromised ultra-rich Tom and Daisy certainly conjures up images of today’s reckless billionaires (I don’t need to name names, but I’m sure we all know who).
You could also argue that The Great Gatsby is a classic because it speaks to something that endures across every era: our desire to be seen, to matter, and to strive for more, but we are influenced by others and those who came before. In fact, the novel’s final line perfectly sums it up: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”