What does the last line of The Great Gatsby mean?

If we go with the “heavy burden” meaning of the word “borne,” then this last line means that our past is an anchor and a weight on us no matter how hard we try to go forward in life. In this case, life only an illusion of forward progress. read more

Just my interpretation, but I take it to express the futility of fighting against the current of life as well as the realization that we all obviously do and will continue to. read more

The Last Line of The Great Gatsby The last sentence of this novel is consistently ranked in the lists of best last lines that magazines like to put together. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. read more

In The Great Gatsby, the final line of the novel echoes what Gatsby does throughout the novel, as well as what he was doing in the five years preceding the opening of the narrative: trying to recapture the past. read more