Text Connections

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald included many text-to-world connections in order to help his readers to better understand the actions of society and the consequences that they cause.  Gatsby was consumed with recreating the past.  All that he wanted was for Daisy to find him and fall in love with him again so that they could live happily ever after.  Unfortunately this mindset was not practical because Daisy had already moved on and was married to another man that she claimed she loved.  Today people are consumed with relationships past, present, and future.  After a breakup, many times the person that got hurt only wants to go back to a time when the relationship was perfect.  Unfortunately that rarely happens since as we can see humans jump around from person to person, unable to decide on a specific person to stay with and marry, and even after they have decided on someone half of those relationships end in divorce.

There are many consequences to being consumed with greed, and in Gatsby’s case it was his own death.  The American Dream is personified as material prosperity, which almost everyone hopes, but rarely succeeds, in achieving.  A popular quote today is, “Some people are so poor that all they have is money,” showing that those who end up with wealth usually do not have much else.  They do not realize until it is too late that pursuing only money instead of family, friends, serving others etc. will not lead to happiness.