Fixing the Past
“‘Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’” (Fitzgerald 110). At the end of chapter 6, we can see that Gatsby wants to fix the past and be with Daisy again, and after Gatsby talks about repeating the past he then says, “‘I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,’” (Fitzgerald 110). After the extremely awkward conversation between Gatsby and Daisy in chapter 5, It is pretty evident that Gatsby is now very determined to relive the past and take Daisy away from Tom so he can have Daisy for himself. Even though we talked about how the clock in chapter 5 represented how the past was already broken, Gatsby is determined to win back Daisy.
After reading chapter 7 and 8, it is clear that Gatsby was doing everything he can to be with Daisy. In the heated argument between Tom and Gatsby, Gatsby says, “‘you’re not going to take care of her any more’”(Fitzgerald 133). After they all return from the city, Gatsby decides to wait all night to make sure Daisy is safe and that Tom doesn’t hurt her. It seems like Gatsby truly does love Daisy because he wanted to take care of her and make sure she was safe, and he is also genuinely trying to win her love. But, Gatsby actually has this obsessive desire to fix what happened in the past between him and Daisy. On page 110, Nick even mentions how Gatsby talked a lot about the past, which shows how he is way too focused on redoing the past. Although, it seems like Gatsby truly loves Daisy, it is more of a cynical love because Gatsby is too obsessed and too motivated to fix his own past that is already broken.
I liked how you decided to include the picture of the broken clock. In class, when we were talking about this section of the book, I honestly never expected a similar motif from Maus to show up in The Great Gatsby, like the relationship between the past and present. I think it's really sad watching Gatsby's obsession of fixing the past, especially because he seems so much more "unstable" when he talks about the past than when he talks about the present.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the image you chose for the blog as it matched almost perfectly with your topic. Also, the evidence you used was very convincing and citied well, as the quotes did nothing but argue for your point.
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