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Playlist The Great Gatsby: Shmoopversations 16 videos
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The Great Gatsby Part 14: Borne Back Ceaselessly 21339 Views
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Description:
There’s no way to move forward because people are always looking back...unless you’re traveling with the Doctor from Doctor Who, which means that you can look back into the past by looking forward or backwards. Any votes for Jay Gatsby as the next companion? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Transcript
- 00:01
We speak student!
- 00:05
The Great Gatsby
- 00:07
Borne Back Ceaselessly
- 00:09
a la Shmoop
- 00:12
In the vein of this dead American Dream,
Full Transcript
- 00:15
talk to us about the last line in the book,
- 00:17
"borne back ceaselessly."
- 00:22
What does this quote mean?
- 00:24
So this last line, when Nick says,
- 00:27
"we're born back ceaselessly into the past."
- 00:29
The idea is that no matter what we're
- 00:31
reaching for in the future,
- 00:33
the reason we're reaching for it
- 00:35
is because of something in our past.
- 00:37
[ baby babbles ]
- 00:38
So there's no way of only looking forward,
- 00:42
because, in looking forward, we're looking back.
- 00:45
And that's what this line
- 00:47
says, although it just does it way more eloquently than I just did.
- 00:49
Fair enough.
- 00:50
It's hard to compete with Fitzgerald.
- 00:52
So Gatsby's out of the picture.
- 00:54
Nick has the ball.
- 00:56
The whole story is about to come to an end.
- 00:59
And let's talk about
- 01:00
the notion of the irony of the title.
- 01:05
And maybe talk to us about some of the other titles
- 01:07
that were used.
- 01:09
Yeah. I'm trying to think what some of the titles were.
- 01:12
But a lot of it was focused on the Eggs,
- 01:14
like the West Egg.
- 01:15
On Your Way To The West Egg. And then one of them was actually called -
- 01:19
I'm not going to get it exactly right - but something like,
- 01:21
"Under Red, White, and Blue."
- 01:23
So highlighting the American thing.
- 01:24
So the fact that Fitzgerald
- 01:26
doesn't highlight the setting in the title...
- 01:28
He could've ended up with West Egg.
- 01:30
He doesn't highlight America in the title. He highlights Gatsby.
- 01:34
And there's definitely a reason for that.
- 01:36
And, again, it's because Gatsby is such --
- 01:38
It's the embodiment of all of those things together
- 01:40
in this one character. He's the embodiment of
- 01:42
his setting and of the time of America.
- 01:45
So, yes, when Gatsby dies,
- 01:47
the idea is the American Dream is dead, too.
- 01:49
So, yeah, Fitzgerald didn't really believe in that.
- 01:52
[ typing ]
- 01:56
[ whoop ]
- 01:57
What does this quote mean?
- 02:00
What is the irony in the novel's title?
- 02:04
[ baby babbles ]
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