The Great Gatsby: Pages 169-180

F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the concluding pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, it seems as though each character’s true nature and personality came to light. Unfortunately, in my opinion, most of their final chances to redeem themselves passed by without action, and they allowed their story to end on a sour note. Although I believe that Fitzgerald did write a captivating, interesting novel, I am always confused why books like The Great Gatsby go down in history as the most famous, or cleverest. Personally I find them depressing and draining. I really was enjoying this novel, I was laughing and finding it interesting, but alas, it seems as though the author felt that the happiness just could not continue until the end. Both this novel and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton ended on similar notes, and after reading both of them, I feel as though the authors are trying to get across the point that no story has a happy ending. Whether speaking of Wharton’s Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden or of Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, Carraway, and the Buchanans, it seems as though they are trying to prove that in life, we just have to accept that happy endings are rare, or even nonexistent. When the novel took a pessimistic turn, it became not the interesting book it had been, but rather a tedious chore to read. While I was reading, I felt as though the last couple of chapters were void of any emotion, happy or not. All the color that had filled the pages was gone, and nothing was left except bleakness and gray. Character Nick Carraway removes even the last sense of emotion, even if it was written in anger, when “on the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it,” (Fitzgerald, 180). Although I am aware that there is a lot of depression and sadness in the world, I have still not lost hope for happy endings, and I hope that these writers’ perceptions are proven wrong.