On the last page of The Great Gatsby I really liked the paragraph about long island when it was "a fresh, green breast of the new world," and I noticed that I had seen this theme of being awed by imagining the past in other places. For example, there is a Dave Matthews Band song that talks about the wonders of a world untouched by man. The line goes "Now the world is small, compared to how it used to be with mountains and oceans and winters and rivers and stars". This is similar to the way Nick describes his wonder with this land before the trees were cut down to make way for Gatsby's house. The most interesting part of this paragraph, in my opinion, is when he describes how a man must have "held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." I can absolutely relate to this overwhelming wonder about the world's past, before humans settled in it. The beauty of this untouched nature, the "old, unknown world," is something we all like to imagine. From what Mr. Bolos and Doc Oc have mentioned about The Kentucky Cycle, that it follows the same piece of land throughout different sections of history, I imagine that the wonders of the unknown world before man will play a part in that book as well.
Ian- great way to connect a great song to the Great Gatsby! This song goes on to say "Funny the way it is, if you think about it; Somebodys going hungry and someone else is eating out; Funny the way it is, not right or wrong" In this stanza The Dave Matthews Band addresses another common theme in Gatsby: class. We talked a lot about wealth and the lifestyles of the wealthy as opposed to those in the lower-class. The sentiment that this is the way things are, is one to dwell on as it seems there has always been a large gap between classes (in 1770, 1921 and today in 2011).
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