F. Scott Fitzgerald ends the story of Gatsby, a man who very well represents the tendency to hold on to hope that characterizes our human kind, with Nick’s final reflection on life:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (180)
The phrase as a whole describes our constant but ultimately futile effort to fight our reality and leave our past behind in order to reach the future ahead of us… always ahead of us. The word “we” indicates he is talking, not only about Gatsby, but about himself, the reader and every other human being. He compares us to boats, fighting against the current. As a reader one can infer that the current described is taking us into the past, pulling us away from an intangible goal. We are always close to the future, waiting for it to come, but when the time finally arrives, what we find is no longer the future, it is the present and simultaneously the past. The ending also portrays how Gatsby was pursuing a future born long before, Daisy. As he struggles towards his dream, rooted in the past, he is reviving ancient memories. Thus, “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
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