After reading the first chapter of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, I noticed a particular passage that really spoke to me. The protagonist, Nick, describes his friend Tom as, "one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anticlimax" (Fitzgerald 6). In college, Tom had been an outstanding football player and belonged to very wealthy family. He was seen as a "national figure" by others; those were his glory days, per say, and he will never forget them. Yet, Nick continues to describe his feelings towards Tom and feels that, "Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game" (6). Nick brings up a very important life lesson here.
Tom is very wealthy, has a beautiful wife, and has all the material products he could ever wish for. Nick is able to discover, however, that Tom simply is not satisfied with his life, and he decides that Tom will be searching for that same happiness he USED to have for the rest of his life, never being able to find it.
This point that Nick brings up (most likely Fitzgerald's thoughts as well) applies a lot to my own life. I am in a particular position where I am about to finish high school and move on to a completely different part of my life. I will be going to college, become a full adult, get married, have kids, etc. The point is, each step of my life is a completely new stage of experience; each one is just as significant as the rest. We often are afraid of moving on to new stages in our lives; we tend to focus on one thing to accomplish in life. As a junior in high school, many kids bank their happiness on getting into the best college, winning a state championship, or getting a certain girl/boy to go out with them. People think that if they accomplish these goals, they are set for life and will be happy forever. The world just does not work this way. We cannot look back at our "glory days," as Tom does; we must find happiness in every new stage of our lives.
The theme Fitzgerald is trying to communicate about Americans during the 1920s, as well as today, is that people cannot expect to find eternal true happiness once wealth and material goods are aquired. Many people who are rich beyond belief and own everything they want are, in fact, some of the most depressed people in the world. As I prepare to move on to the many new stages of my life, I will not look forward to finding happiness in one of those areas, but in all of them.
