To the Class of 2019,
Creating the research project, website, and presentation gave me a greater satisfaction and insight than I could have imagined. I see the frustrations and exhalations you experience as you move along. But more than anything, I have a confession to make: I am a classist. I have witnessed people mistreating others based on social status, real or imagined. Countless times in school, at work, or in social contexts, I have seen people excluded based on their street address, their parents' status within a community, or a church where they worship. You name it -- I have seen people excepted rather than accepted for it.
Most of my life, I have seen how ambitious folks can afford to be members of the club, but they still don't belong. That does not dim my view that life does not get better. As my paper, website, and project may express the notion that a caste system exists in The Great Gatsby, George Wilson, Tom Buchanan, and Jay Gatsby represent the American caste system that defines what success is not. Perhaps it is my profession that gives me hope -- after all, public education is the greatest engine of social mobility in this country. It is the source of hope for many, the driving force that allows students like you -- students of character and strength -- to find an avenue in life that enthralls you and allows you to explore it. You are not George Wilson, stuck in a place and a circumstance where your only option is heartbreak.
Yet Gatsby is the man on whom I want you to keep your eye -- because his flaw is your trap. The moment you take the easy way out, do the convenient instead of the difficult, is the moment you cheat your future and your gift. That is the beauty of art -- you cannot fault Gatsby in many ways because he is charming, but John Green says it beautifully in his YouTube episode, "Was Gatsby Great?" -- Gatsby chases an unworthy dream; he could have been great.
Fitzgerald says it better than I ever could: "He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever" (153). Such is the power of time -- try as we might, we cannot control it or reclaim it. We do the best with the time that we have.
May 17th is rushing toward us, but please remember -- keep the dream current, keep it in front of you. That is my wish and hope for you, who have made this year memorable and sweet and powerful for me. You are unforgettable.
Auf wiedersehen -- not good-bye,
Schriener