By Samuel N. Harris
First published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Great Gatsby–arguably my favorite novel of all time–celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. Reflecting on it recently brought back a lot of memories for me of when I first fell in love with the book and began to recognize its profound lessons for life.
In spring of 2013, I was doing my student teaching and reading Gatsby to prepare for teaching it to my juniors. (Incidentally, this was also the year Baz Luhrmann’s film version would come out that May, so one special memory is of getting to take my students on a field trip to go see it.) I’d read Gatsby before, of course, as a high school junior myself. But this time, with a little more age, wisdom, and collegiate education in literary analysis under my belt, I discovered whole layers of meaning that had escaped my grasp before. Besides finding what felt like a kindred spirit in introspective narrator Nick Carraway, I also resonated with the timeless theme of Gatsby and his “extraordinary gift for hope” trying to repeat the past.
Gatsby’s goal in the novel is to win back his former lover, Daisy Buchanan. But more than that, he wants everything Daisy represents–an idealistic, picture-perfect life where Daisy has only ever loved Gatsby, disregarding her marriage and children of the last five years. As YA author John Green remarks in a video I showed my students, “Every time we get what we thought we wanted, we realize that we want more, because what we really want is to go back in time to some place when we felt safe, some time before we discovered violence and corruption, when we were happy and pure and innocent.” Like Twenty One Pilots, we “wish we could turn back time to the good old days, when our mama sang us to sleep,” instead of being “stressed out” by the cares of our complicated adult lives.
In the novel, Nick famously reminds Gatsby that “you can’t repeat the past,” to which Gatsby defiantly responds against all odds, “Of course you can.” He’s determined to reclaim his romanticized past at all costs, or die trying (whoops, spoilers!). And though his perseverance and optimism may at times seems inspiring, he ultimately misses the relevant lesson.
I had my students do a creative activity where they visually represented the contrast between their ideal selves and real selves (just as Gatsby has carefully crafted the ideal version of himself that he wants everyone else to see). As an example for them–and maybe also for my own catharsis–I did the assignment too. Since superheroes are my jam, I put pictures of superheroes on the outside–but the bright, idealistic versions like smiling Superman and classic Spider-Man, the sort of heroes I’d like others to see me as. But the inside of the folded paper craft looked a little different–with black-suit, no-nonsense Spider-Man and brooding Batman from The Dark Knight trilogy. After the social, intellectual, and philosophical challenges that come with four-ish years of college, I felt like I was more cynical, less pure and hopeful, than in my simpler teenage years. And I knew I could never go back. The darker heroes better reflected how I then felt about myself–still stubbornly fighting back against the darkness, struggling not to be overcome, but sometimes barely holding on to hope.
Time and memory are funny things, though. I’m getting older, and it’s been over a decade since my student teaching semester. Today, when I look back on “the good old days”–whatever that means–I’m inclined to think of that period in my early twenties from roughly 2013 to 2015. After student teaching and graduation, I began grad school that fall, when I roomed with a couple of my best friends for two years and enjoyed being young, single, and carefree in a town I loved. At least, that’s how it feels in my memory today–though with the stresses of school, work, dating woes, and car trouble, I’m sure I didn’t think myself entirely “carefree” at the time. And while I might now look back on my 22-year-old self and say, “Man, that was such a simple and innocent time,” that assignment I did reveals that my 22-year-old self was thinking the exact same thing about my 16-year-old self. I wonder if, when I’m 50, I’ll view my present life (age 35) as “the good old days” too. The grass is always greener ten years in the past.
My wife and I sometimes ask each other if we miss Lynchburg–the central Virginia college town where I grew up and we both went to school and spent many years. Even though my family and a few good friends are still in the area, I can honestly answer “no” most days. And that’s because the Lynchburg I miss doesn’t exist anymore. The place I really miss is the Lynchburg of 2014, when my friends were my roommates, I didn’t have kids, my favorite local bands played frequently downtown, my school wasn’t yet infamous for scandalous moral failings, and everyone still raved about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And, short of the invention of time travel, it’s simply impossible for me to go back to that Lynchburg ever again. Even if I wanted to. Even if I tried.
A century after its publication, Fitzgerald’s magnum opus still serves as a haunting cautionary tale about trying to relive an idealized past rather than embracing the present as it is, warts and all. Fitzgerald touched on just a hint of the wisdom of Solomon, who wrote, “Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10, New King James Version). The New Living Translation puts it even more bluntly: “Don’t long for ‘the good old days.’ This is not wise.”
If I live to be 100 like The Great Gatsby has, then I sure don’t want to spend all my days living in the past.
Check out Samuel N. Harris’s website here for more info about his work!
