The Great Gatsby Essay example

Submitted By hopejoleneee123
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During my reading of The Great Gatsby, I came across an interesting quote which read, “All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'you can't live forever; you can't live forever.’” It made me start to sincerely think about my life and how fast it is all going by, and how I really wish it wouldn’t, because, when things are flying past you, you are likely to miss something important, and something as small, or maybe even as big as that, could be crucial to impacting someone’s life.
I believe that this passage reveals about Nick Carraway is that once he takes a step back from the big picture, also known as Life, he begins to think about his past. He starts to realize that his life, even though he was present for it, he was never really there. He finds himself realizing that his life has just been passing him by the entire time. He’s never really just lived before; never gone out and done something courageous, and possibly stupid, just because he was young and could later on use the excuse of, “You’re only young once.” In this case, when he stated that, I think he felt regret. Regret for not having gone out and having done the things that he wished that he would have when he had the opportunities to do them.
I believe that a large philosophical issue that goes along the lines of this quote is that everyone sincerely thinks that they have forever to get things done, or forever to do the things that they sincerely want to do, like travel to Paris or go to the Bahamas for spring break, but the problem with this is that everyone seems to forget that there might not be a tomorrow. Whether they procrastinate on studying for their final exams or on a paper that they had all summer to write, or even to waiting an extra day to tell someone how you really feel about them. As humans, we like to do things later on, or say the usual, “I have plenty of time,” and “I’ll do it tomorrow.” But what we should really do is stop waiting for tomorrow, and stop waiting for the future to happen to come to us, when we really should be the ones taking ahold of it firsthand.
I believe the theme that Fitzgerald was trying to portray in this passage is pretty obvious; you don’t live forever. Life happens. You should just take chances. You never know what might happen. Life is
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