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F Scott Fitzgerald's Use Of Flashback In The Great Gatsby

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F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes flashbacks in his book The Great Gatsby to help readers understand the depth of Gatsby’s obsession with his first love, Daisy. In Chapter VI, Fitzgerald takes the reader back to 1917 in Louisville, KY when Gatsby and Nick Carraway the narrator talked about Daisy finally attending one of the parties he threw in hopes of drawing her to him. Four years prior, Gatsby left Daisy to go into the Army and Daisy moved on and got married, creating a new life for herself. This passage demonstrates to the reader how oblivious Gatsby was to Daisy’s life. In expecting Daisy to tell her husband she never loved him, he ignores that Daisy had to get over Gatsby. He assumes that Daisy should want to destroy her marriage and pretend the last …show more content…

Gatsby disregards everything about Daisy, her needs, her desires, her thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. He believes that she should think, feel, believe, want, and need everything the way he does and finds fault with her when she fails to meet this expectation. Gatsby also fails to comprehend that he has changed as well over the past four years. He obstinately believes that he can go back to the young man he was and change the course of his life. Even when the narrator gently nudges Gatsby to let go of his unrealistic expectations, advising him, “You can’t repeat the past,” Gatsby was astonished that the narrator would say such a thing. ‘”Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ‘Why of course you can!’” The reader knows that anyone of sound mind understands that we must all live with our regrets. None of us can repeat the past, much as we may wish we could. We must grieve our losses, learn from our mistakes, and move forward as best we can employing our newfound wisdom in hopes of making better choices so we do not repeat the same

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522 Words | 3 Pages

lust for the past In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby seeks love from the past with a girl bright and beautiful who's name is daisy; who is now married to Tom Beucanon. Though they are married, Gatsby's desire for her shows that he will stop at nothing to be reunited with his past lover. In the midst of night nick goes outside for air and to look at the stars, in his relaxed state his eyes wander and he finds a figure in the mansion next to him staring at the same stars as himself.

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What does Gatsby realize about Daisy ’s feelings towards the

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He is haunted by the idea of being with Daisy. Gatsby believes that what he needs to do is reach a state that he was in the past. That him and Daisy both were. He believes this too saying "Cant repeat the past? While of course you can" Chapter 7 1.

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2016 Words | 9 Pages

Fitzgerald uses a flashback to reward readers with Gatsby’s and Daisy’s long-anticipated history, finally explaining why Gatsby is so dead-set on winning Daisy back, and why he feels betrayed by time. Nick reveals that the name Jay Gatsby is really a pseudonym for James Gatz. Under the assumed name, Gatsby believes he can achieve success to a level worthy of attaining Daisy, rather than be the “penniless young man without a past” (Fitzgerald 149). However, in his pursuit of a past, Gatsby found himself resenting it because after making a name for himself in the war effort, he was sent to Oxford rather than back home. All-the-while, Daisy, back home, engulfs herself in an “artificial world” of parties, champagne, flowers, and orchestras that “summed up the sadness and suggestiveness of life” (Fitzgerald 151).

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1317 Words | 6 Pages

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays love, obsession, and objectification through the characters Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Some might say their love was true and Gatsby’s feelings for her was pure affection, while others say that he objectifies and is obsessed with her. Perhaps Gatsby confuses lust and obsession with love, and throughout the novel, he is determined to win his old love back. At the end of the novel, Gatsby is met with an untimely death and never got to be with Daisy. The reader is left to determined if Gatsby’s and Daisy’s love was pure and real, or just wasn’t meant to be.

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1014 Words | 5 Pages

In the book, Gatsby is very foolish, his actions are unreasonable and unrealistic. “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved you."” (125) Gatsby had expected Daisy to be the same girl she was five years ago, but the truth is that she isn't. Many things had happened to the both of them and he had set up a foolish expectation that Daisy was willing to leave Tom for him. Gatsby’s foolishness originated with Daisy.

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756 Words | 4 Pages

The quote shows to Nick and the reader that Gatsby, despite not talking to Daisy for 5 years, how he believes Daisy loves him, and the past will be repeated. It gives the reader an image of a crazy man who will stop at nothing to get a girl who no longer loves him. The way Gatsby gets very defensive and set on repeating history, does not demonstrate affection ask doesn’t seem to care that Daisy opinion and believes 100% that Daisy for sure loves him

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1311 Words | 6 Pages

As defined by Aristotle, “a tragic hero is a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction” (“Tragic Hero” 1). In The Great Gatsby, Great historical writers like Sophocles and the aforementioned Aristotle used this character archetype while manifesting their works to create characters that were both larger than life, but also were human. Like these dateless litterateurs, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses this timeless archetype to create the titular character Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald likens Gatsby to fellow tragic heros like Antigone, Oedipus Rex, and Odysseus by describing him to be both a common man and larger than life. Furthermore, similar to other tragic heroes, Gatsby has a tremendous fall from grace.

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833 Words | 4 Pages

This is what allows readers to know that Gatsby from the begging of the novel has been trying to do everything he can to repeat the past that he once had with Daisy. Gatsby says this quote out of frustration because he doesn’t understand that the past can’t be changed even with all of the money that he has. Gatsby does everything from the beginning till the end of the novel to try and repeat the past but doesn’t understand that the past can’t be changed not even with all of the money in the

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724 Words | 3 Pages

In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the past comes up quite a bit for a few of the characters and Fitzgerald shows how the past affects each of the characters. Each character in the book has their own unique characteristics that create who they are. In this book it is explained what happened in Gatsby’s past and how he was able to become the successful person that he now. Throughout the book, Fitzgerald shows us how Gatsby keeps looking back at his past, especially when Daisy is involved she is everything to him and the biggest reason that he wants what he had in the past to come back.

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1122 Words | 5 Pages

Daisy however, very heartbroken and anxious to start a family, failed to wait for Gatsby while he was at war and she vulnerably fell in love with Tom and his money. Throughout the time Gatsby was away she grew and developed mentally, leaving him to love someone that no longer existed. When Gatsby says “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”(Fitzgerald 110)it shows how his imagination has affected his sense of reality. He became lost in the idea that he could get Daisy back and things would automatically return to how they were before he went away.

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809 Words | 4 Pages

Once Daisy begins to see Gatsby on a regular basis, Gatsby begins to encourage Daisy to leave Tom and create a life with him. In the novel, Nick observes, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved you." After she had obliterated four years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken. One of them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louisville and be married from her house—just as if it were five years ago.” Gatsby believes he can provide Daisy with a lavish and happy life that her unfaithful husband could never give

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739 Words | 3 Pages

A tragic hero is defined as a literary character who makes an judgement error that inevitably leads to his/her destruction. These criterias categorize Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. Gatsby's tragic flaw lies within his inability to realize that the real and the ideal cannot coexist. His false perception of certain people of ideas lead him to his moral downfall and eventual demise. Gatsby's idealism distorts his perception of Daisy.

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542 Words | 3 Pages

This quote shows that Gatsby is living in a fantasy of the past that he can't seem to let go of. He is driven by his own selfishness to have Daisy for himself just like he did five years ago. It's seems like Gatsby is more in love by the idea he's made up of Daisy from the past than who she is

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559 Words | 3 Pages

The flashback in the book The Great Gatsby served the purpose of showing the history of Gatsby, Daisy, and Mr. Gatsby. If the flashback was not used it would be hard to understand how the characters were supposed to connect. It also provided a reader with what life was like in the twenties. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of a flashback helped to support his story with details and background

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