>“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly

>>9379083
We cannot escape our past. We cannot escape who we are. We cannot escape fate--but I may be reading too much into it with this last one.

>>9379083
We're striving to recreate the past, but the effort is always futile, as our now is always continually passing into memory. The metaphor conveys the picture of blissful ignorance: Gatsby pursues a love that he doesn't know is lost, and for all his efforts, it's slipping further and further away. He's fighting a losing battle from the very start. The key is in the double meaning of current: here it means both current time and a current in a body of water. Our now is always slipping into the past, that is, becoming memories that we can never reexperience, and our past times can never be regained.

Rowing is difficult yo

>>9379083
Swag

>>9379083
Bump

Eternal Sunshine and Spotless Mind

>>9379083
>So we beat on
It's a celebration of pathological masturbation, especially that of a nostalgic variety. It's well-documented that he constantly jerked off to the thought of the same four girls he knew in high school

Shouldnt it be incessantly lol

>>9381273
no.

>>9379083
To row is not a typical way of 'going' because one's eyes are set opposite to the way of one's progress, i.e. in the past. If the current is strong, and against (you) it can even feel as if youre rowing in place, i.e. getting nowhere. The concluding image doesn't deny the idea of individual human progress, but transforms it into an immense and even very painful human labor, i.e. no given. These concluding sentences are sighed almost, and a foil to Gatsby's belief in 'the green light'.

>>9379083
Is this the greatest ending sentence in all of literature?

>>9381306
Ulysses

>>9381312
>yes
>great sentence