As a
little girl, I loved to read. I would read anything I could get my hands on,
even if it meant rereading books over and over again. As I grew older my love
for reading slowly died, and I began to only read things I was required to
read. During my sophomore year I had to read The Great Gatsby, written
by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and, unlike other books I was required to read in
school, this book captivated me. Not only did this novel interest me, but I was
compelled to read more because of the multiple underlying messages this book
entailed. The Great Gatsby is a thought-provoking and mysterious novel
that includes underlying messages and life lessons that I loved to find
throughout this book and could take out of the text to use in my own life.
The main message I found in The Great Gatsby was that money cannot
buy love or friendship. In the very materialistic world we live in, society
makes it seem that you need more “things” to have lots of friends. But what
this book showed me is that money and “things” seems to only buy you fake
friends who don’t care about you as a person, they simply care about what you
possess. The Great Gatsby taught me
that you don’t have to be rich in money to have friends that care about you and
who love you, but what you need to be is rich in qualities that make you a good
person. To acquire true friends who love you for who you are, you have to be
rich in love, honesty, and kindness. This message in the book shaped my way of
thinking when it comes to friends, as well as the way I act toward others after
I read it.
What I also took from The Great Gatsby was that being
optimistic and hopeful are two traits that can get you almost anywhere in life.
I have always tried to be an optimistic person, but it’s not the easiest goal
to accomplish when life is full of ups and downs. But when I discovered Jay
Gatsby’s childhood from where he started and where he got to later in life, it
ignited a fire within me. It truly made me believe that you can get yourself
out of any type of lifestyle you live or situations you have been through or
are going through. Yes, Gatsby isn’t a real person, but what the character does
with his life simply out of desire and optimism for his future is remarkable,
and it showed me that the possibilities for my future are endless if I am
optimistic for what I want my future to hold.
Not only did I find from reading The Great Gatsby that being optimistic
can get you far in life, but dreaming big can do the same thing. When I was
little I had an incredible imagination; there was no limit to what my mind
could think of. But, just like most kids, as I grew up my creative imagination
dwindled from the harshness of reality. As a child, you dream to become the President
or an astronaut when you grow up. But as you become older, society tells you to
choose something more practical, like a doctor or a teacher. What I took from The Great Gatsby is that dreams can
become reality if you truly believe in your dreams and put your mind to it. I
found this message to be very important to me especially at a time when I was
and still am figuring out what I want to do with my life after college.
The last lesson I took from The Great Gatsby is about the past. The
past is a hard thing to escape from, especially parts that we don’t want to
remember. I have had some events in my past that I try to forget about, but
it’s nearly impossible to always put those things aside and to never look back
on. But when I read The Great Gatsby,
I learned another important lesson that was about the past; you can’t change or
recreate the past. What I took from Fitzgerald’s book is that I need to accept
what has happened in my past in order to flourish in the present. I learned to
stop wanting to change parts of my past because I realized that who I am today
is because of what has happened in those moments of my past.
In
conclusion, the lessons I took from reading The
Great Gatsby have made a lasting impression on me, and will continue to influence
me throughout my life. The novel allowed for me to discover new ways of
thinking, which all readers can find when reading this book. The messages I
found within this book made me find my love of reading again, while at the same
time it helped me to become a better person.
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