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In F. Scott Fitzgerald's book The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is said to have believed in the green light at the end of the dock. This light represents, in part, what is possible but what has eluded him. At the end of the novel Fitzgerald concludes: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
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<p>Assignment: Do you believe that we can leave the past behind? In an essay, support your position ...</p>
<p>**The second example is extremely weak as I have not finished the Scarlet Letter yet ... and don't know how it unfolds in the end.</p>
<p>My Essay</p>
<p>Is it possible to leave our past behind? Can we simply forget it, and continue with our lives without it influencing us? No, the past shapes us into who and what we are. It is unlikely, if not impossible, for anyone to be unaffected by personal history and experiences.</p>
<p>In 1947, India finally won its independence after over 200 years of the British Raj. We were finally free, everyone was happy! Well, ALMOST everyone. Unfortunately, this freedom had come at a heavy price: Partition. My grandmother, who was a resident of the Pakistani part of the country - along with what family was left from the resulting massacre - was forced to flee to Delhi, leaving behind EVERYTHING. Friends, property, affluence, she had been robbed of all she had once possessed. And even today, after 61 years, she has been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to make peace with it - and I doubt she ever will. To her, the past is not so easy to overlook.</p>
<p>In Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter', Hester Prynne is tried and found guilty of giving birth to an illegitimate child. Though pressured tremendously to reveal the identity of her lover, she does not. Madly in love, but still abashed of her wrongdoing, Hester resolves to take on the punishment herself. Unlike her, however, the father Arthur Dimmesdale, is too frightened to confess. He endeavors to ignore his responsibility as a parent and duty as a husband. Dimmesdale tries repeatedly to continue with his life normally - but to no avail. As the years past, he loathes himself for his cowardice; the harder he tries to conceal his past, the more impossible it becomes. With every passing moment, his past returns to haunt him with even greater ferocity - until it finally becomes too great to ignore.</p>
<p>By examining these two cases, we may infer that the past cannot just be 'left behind'. As with my grandmother, it is sometimes too painful or too huge to forget ... and as with Arthur Dimmesdale, it is sometimes better to just accept it - even if it is ignominious, before it ruins us forever.</p>