Themes of the Past in American Literature
As George Orwell pointed out, the past determines and affects peoples’ futures. However, the past is also something that has already passed. Therefore people should be aware that their past can give them a direction for a better future, but it can not be a future itself. People should use their past for nothing more than as a foundation for their future. Gatsby from the novel The Great Gatsby, Amanda from the play the Glass Menagerie, and Willy from the play he Death of a Salesman, contradict reality and demonstrate the consequence of contractions throughout their lives.
The authors show how the protagonists Gatsby, Amanda, and Willy become blinded by their dominant memories of their past, and consequently, their memories bring them unexpected ends in the end. Through these characters, the authors suggest why people shouldn’t live in the past by illustrating what is wrong in the protagonists’ lives. To compensate for their unsatisfactory present lives, Gatsby, Amanda, and Willy choose to live in the past; but as they escape from the reality, they all end up with tragic, unexpected results.
In the novel The Great Gatsby, The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, uses Gatsby’s mistakes to illustrate why it is wrong to live in the past. Further more, he results the novel with Gatsby’s death to illustrate how his false belief consequently bring him an unexpected end which was tragic death for Gatsby. Gatsby, as a blind Romanist, couldn’t see any problems in his life which is devoted not to himself but to Daisy. Gatsby, “he wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: “I never loved you.” After she had obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken.
On the them was that, after she was free, they were to go back to Louis Ville and be married from her house – just as if it were five years ago.”(Fitzgerald 116) The Author includes much significance in Gatsby’s plan that first; Gatsby gets fascinated by his past too much that he wants to go back to his best day of life, second; he wants to achieve his dream of living with Daisy by breaking her family, and third; because of his unrealistic dream, he is missing all the chances to improve his present and even his future by not facing the reality. According to Gatsby’s dream, Daisy should say that “I never loved you” to Tom, which means the break up of Daisy’s family. Gatsby’s plan doesn’t consider Daisy’s situation whether Daisy’s best day was with Gatsby or with Tom.
Nevertheless, Gatsby decides to go back to 5 years ago with Daisy. In addition, Gatsby fails to see the chances to change his present and even future that he would have met a better woman than Daisy in his luxurious party and uncountable money, but he doesn’t even attempt once. His tragic end is a reasonable sequence, because he doesn’t plan anything except making his dream come true. As a result, Gatsby’s tragic end is started when Daisy says “”Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,” she admitted in a pitiful voice. “It wouldn’t be true.”” By Daisy, the truth is revealed which break Gatsby’s dream. The author exposes the reality to Gatsby which everyone except Gatsby didn’t know. As his dream is failed, Gatsby’s life quickly declined, and then at the end, his illusionary life is ended just like his dream suddenly disappears by facing the reality. Throughout Gatsby’s life, Fitzgerald shows that dream of living in the past can be never achieved bring an unexpected results which was his own death for Gatsby’s
Further more, in the play, The Glass menagerie Amanda shows a similar behavior with Gatsby that she doesn’t face the reality of her daughter, crippled leg. Amanda not only denies her daughter’s crippled leg, but also believes that she could make a boy friend for her just like when she was Laura’s age. By using Amanda’s unattainable dream, the author, Tennessee Williams, shows how Amanda’s ignorance of the reality and desire to repeat her past could result a family conflict. She refuses her daughter’s crippled leg by saying “Nonsense! Laura, I’ve told you never, never to use that word. Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect – hardly noticeable, even!” (Williams 17). However, her denial of Laura’s crippled leg doesn’t give Laura a confidence but a timorous mind that she finally isolated from a society. Regardless of Amanda’s purpose of giving Laura a confidence at her leg, Amanda makes Laura be shyer and put her into the deeper depression.
Also by believing Laura could repeat Amanda’s youth, she gives a lot of stresses to her children, Tom and Laura. Since Amanda was a popular girl among boys at her youth, she assumes that Laura could have many boy friends. However, her assumption is from the ignorance of Laura’s cripple leg that in order to achieve dream, Amanda denies the reality. Also to achieve her dream, Amanda gives a great amount of pressure on Tom regardless of his maturity, by interfering his life and demanding him to bring a gentleman caller for his sister.
Amanda even lectures on Tom that “You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it.”(Williams 45) Although Tom seems not preparing his future in Amanda’s judgment, who doesn’t prepare the future is actually Amanda herself, because what she thinks is Amanda’s past becomes Laura’s future which contradicts her own thoughts. Consequently, Amanda’s illusionary dream is all broken by Jim’s revealing of engagement and then at the end of the play, Amanda’s ceaseless demand makes Tom to run away from his family. Tennessee Williams illustrates that since Amanda is blind by fallacious dream, she results the breaking of her family.
In the play the Death of a Salesman, the author, Arthur Miller, composes Willy as a failed salesman, who blinds by his jealous of success of other businessman and misses what he has accomplished by daydreaming his unchangeable past, to illustrate how useless it is to think and admire of the past, and how his life declines as a result of it. “The competition Willy encounters is too tough for his modest talents; the path he has chosen denies his true being at every step. He idolizes the dream beyond the truth of himself, and he thus becomes a “romantic,” shadowy nonentity, a liar, a creature whose only happiness lies in looking forward to miracles, since reality mocks his pretensions.
His real ability for manual work seems trivial and mean to him He never owns anything outright till his death by suicide (committed to give Biff a foundation of $20,000); he has never been free.” (by Harold Clurman) As the way to favor himself, he chooses not to face the reality and then he associates with the people who he wants to talk which live in only his memory.
Since he is not successful at his career, he soothes his jealous of other successful businessmen, such as Charley and Dave Singleman, by remembering his prosperous past. However, he doesn’t notice since he remembers the past, he is blinded that he can’t see what he has anymore. “His name was Dave Singleman And he was eighty four years old, âÂ?¦âÂ?¦âÂ?¦âÂ?¦ There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it.”(Miller 81) The case of Dave Singleman is the ideal model for Willy that he wants to be like him in every ways.
However, his reality which is opposite of what Dave Singleman had, puts him into the deeper depression that finally he lives in the past and then he starts to miss all things that he accomplished: his respectful wife, fully paid house, and his sons who love him. Willy’s blindness is rooted from his admiring of the unchangeable past and valuing the past more than the present that consequently he committees a suicide. Throughout Willy’s life, Miller shows that Willy’s failure of business results him to live in the past, and consequently his life is ended up as a suicide.
In all three works, Gatsby, Amanda, and Willy show the common behavior which is living in the past and as a result of it. However, all of them couldn’t achieve their dream that Gatsby and Willy die at the end, and Amanda’s family is broken down. By their unexpected results, the authors suggest that their life styles, which are to honor the past and to avoid the unfavorable present, could result nothing more than illusion. Their attempts to refill their unsuccessful present with the dream of bring their favorable past day back are all concluded as ineffaceable result. Actually their results are inevitable that since their dreams are unachievable, their results can not be what they intend.
