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That time my English teacher said The Great Gatsby should have ended with Gatsby just walking away from Daisy
My high school English teacher Mrs. Patterson told our class back in 2011 that the whole point of the book was that Gatsby should have realized Daisy wasn't worth chasing. She said the real ending should have been him getting in his car and driving back west, leaving all that fake stuff behind. At the time I thought she was nuts because the tragic ending is what makes the book stick with you. But now I've been through a couple of bad relationships myself and I keep thinking about her take. Has anyone else had a teacher or someone suggest an alternate ending that actually made more sense the older you got?
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shah.shane28d ago
Calling someone "peaked in high school" over a book opinion is kind of wild lol. People act like you're supposed to have the same literary hot takes at 16 that you have at 30. I read Gatsby in college and thought it was overhyped, but that's a different conversation. Mrs. Patterson's take is pretty basic teacher wisdom but it's not like she's wrong either. Maybe she just wanted kids to question the whole "chase the girl" narrative instead of treating it like some sacred text.
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