The Great Gatsby Theme analysis

The prevailing theme in The Great Gatsby is that people have a hard time escaping the past.  Gatsby is an example of this because he never lets go of Daisy even after she marries another man.  He is stuck in his fantasies of being rich with Daisy next to him because "he didn't realize just how extraordinary a 'nice' girl could be" (Fitzgerald 149).  He is convinced that Daisy is the key to richness, yet fails to see that he has already achieved wealth and should instead focus on himself rather than trying to complete the dreams of his youth.  Daisy is also an example of this because her past with Gatsby leads her to have an affair with him behind Tom's back. Since she was a child, she never had to deal with the consequences of her actions because the servants did that for her. She shows this mentality as an adult and never fully grows up.  When Daisy announces that she never loved Tom, she says it "as though she had never, all along" (Fitzgerald 132).  The characters get into bad situations because they never give up what happened in the past, allowing it to shape their future and in Gatsby's case his ultimate end.

"Escape From The Past." By The-fox-of-wonders on DeviantArt. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.