25 Minute AP Timed Writing - 1973 Prompt

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel whose ending concludes the story appropriately. The ending of this novel has two main parts to it, the first being that the main character, Jay Gatsby, is shot while relaxing in his pool by a man named George Wilson, who then shoots himself. Gatsby's death is a needed part of the story.  Gatsby originally came from a farming family in the Midwest but ran away from home to try to build himself the American Dream. James Gatz turned into Jay Gatsby, an idea of a man who was brought into being from the mind of a seventeen-year-old boy, who then acquired the fortune to live out his childish dream of fortune and excess. Gatsby worked hard to get his fortune to try to win back the love of his life, Daisy, who decided to marry Tom Buchanan, a man of old money who was richer than Gatsby. Yet he is not able to win her back, for Daisy does not decide to leave Tom for Gatsby. After the altercation where Gatsby knows he will never have Daisy, everything that Gatsby owns and all the money that he has made means nothing to him. Not too long after, Gatsby is shot and killed. His death is necessary because his American Dream is shattered, for Daisy's love was a contingency for Gatsby's happiness. Without her, he did not have a purpose in life, and in the book about his life, he was simply left as a loose end that needed to be tied up. His death fulfilled that job.

The second part of the ending is that one of Gatsby's only friends and the narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, realizes that he no longer wishes to live in New York City. He decides to move back to the Midwest where he grew up, feeling that his life will be better there. Nick has seen how corrupted and materialistic the East is and wishes to once again go West. He realizes that, form his observations, people from the West have some sort of deficiency where they cannot seem to live happily in the East. While the novel began by reminiscing about how Nick decided to go to New York, it is only appropriate that it is ended with Nick speaking of returning home. Yet he is still hopeful that the American Dream is in reach, ending with a view that he will continue on in life, never forgetting Gatsby's tragic story and remembering to never become what Gatsby became.