Bye Bye, Gatsby

         I guess all good things must come to an end right? This week in class we concluded our study of Gatsby and the American Dream. Throughout our study of the dream, the most important message that I pulled away was that in reality, there is no set "dream". The American Dream is simply a manipulation of one's wishes and goals. It is something that manifests in your mind, but can never be explained or put into words. For example, in The Great Gatsby, the American dream is portrayed in several ways. Gatsby has more money than he can count, wealth and knowledge beyond ones capacity, but he lacks happiness, which holds him back a lot. His dream is to have Daisy by his side and to once again be happy. To another person, the dream might be to have enough money to feed their family and to put a roof over their head, while to yet another person the dream might be to have a BMW or a mansion or luxury. The dream contains so many variations that it is almost impossible to define it as one concrete goal. Looking back at the book, i'm still a little confused on why Fitzgerald decided to kill Gatsby at the time he did. Gatsby was trying to reverse the past and relive his life with Daisy. He was also trying to kick Tom out of the picture. Did Fitzgerald kill Gatsby in order to show that one cannot change the past? What are your thoughts?