Jay Gatsby, despite all his successes and the seemingly plentiful life he led, is caught up in his own past and unable to break free from his own dreams of a lost innocence and his vision of recreating it in the now. Upon loosing Daisy after the war, Gatsby decided that his future must lay in his past; as there was no way that the exhilaration he felt with Daisy could ever be replaced, and so he created an elaborate plan to not only recreate his past but mould it in the context and direction he wished. Creati

Although Gatsby persisted on reliving the past, for a brief moment in his life there was acceptance of and even a striving for the present. This is apparent in his leaving home and designing his own identity and heritage. In the past Jay Gatsby made, "...a platonic conception of himself". What Nick said about Gatsby's platonic theory of himself was that Gatsby "...was a son of God". Gatsby idealized himself in the future and strove to achieve that perfection, and ultimately realized that his life could follow two paths. One, to, "...suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder," and embrace time, move with it and learn with the rest of mankind or to strive for that golden age of sorts, long past, and "...his mind would never romp again like the mind of God". Instead he would resign himself to the past and commit to the most impossible of tasks, resisting the flow of time and attempting to preserve the past. In this way Gatsby made his own future and even accepted the consequences before choosing the path he followed and becoming embroiled in the past.

When Gatsby is finally able to make his dream a reality, it falls short of his expectations and all of his planning and the fantasy of his relationship begins to decay, "...and the incarnation was complete" as Nick again comments. The ideal of perfection; being the perfect life and love for Gatsby, is unattainable now with Daisy as she has been made imperfect by the passage of time and as he slowly began to realize this, his worlds both imaginary and tangible begins to crumble around him.

Gatsby’s father believed he had a bright future ahead of him, that his intelligence and stick-to-itiveness would bring him any goal he reached for; and he was completely correct in this assu

Some topics in this essay:
Jay Gatsby, God Instead, American Dream, God Gatsby, , Nick Gatsby's, jay gatsby, caught own, gatsby finally, nick comments, reliving past, own past,