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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Boats Borne Back:
The Great Gatsby’s famous last line is an example of both metaphor and alliteration:
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
First, the passage uses metaphor to compare people (both the novel’s characters and Americans more generally) to boats that are propelled into the past despite their efforts to move forward into the future. Typically, boats move with the current, not against it—a current is usually thought of as something that propels things forward to their destination. Yet here, the boats are rowing “against the current,” meaning that the water is forcing them backwards. So, with this metaphor, the novel is suggesting that even as people try to move forward and embrace the present and future (i.e., as they chase their dreams), they will nonetheless be unable to ever fully escape the impact of their past.
This idea complicates Nick’s earlier claim in the novel that “you can’t repeat the past”—advice that Gatsby ignored as he shaped his entire life around impressing Daisy to win her back and recreate their youthful romance. The metaphor in this passage instead pessimistically suggests that you can’t escape your past—that even as people look forward to the future, doing so will paradoxically entrench them in the past. This is because even dreams and future goals—be it a dream like Gatsby’s or, more generally, the American Dream of success—are tied to recreating an idealized version of the past. Such an idealized vision can never be perfectly recreated (because it never even existed), but it also can’t be escaped because of its idealized perfection. The novel implies that this dynamic is true not only of Gatsby, but of the U.S. more generally, as the novel’s tragic end suggests that the boundless optimism and rapid progress of the Roaring Twenties will itself fade away as history inevitably repeats itself. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, but this prophecy arguably came true, since the 1920s were immediately followed by the Great Depression and then by World War II.
The alliteration in this passage serves to deepen the metaphor. The hard “b” sound in “beat,” “boats,” “borne,” and “back” is meant to sound harsh and persistent, reflecting at once both the rhythm of the boat’s oars hitting the water and the chaotic image of the boats trying desperately to row forward while the turbulent sea propels them backward. The alliteration thus emphasizes the persistence and optimism of those who seek to fulfill or create their visions of the future, while also capturing the way that such efforts are self-destructive and futile.
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