Going To The Past In Literature

In all of the literature I've read, I've noticed that the idea of going to the past is very prevalent in many different works, and is central to storylines.
"And so we bear on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (Fitzgerald 180). This is the final line of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrapping the story up by going back to the central idea. Fitzgerald reminds us that our lives are circles; we constantly go back to something in the past. Gatsby was stuck in his memories of when he and Daisy were together, his whole life revolving around getting him in a position to please her again. Vladek's mindset, in Maus by Art Spiegelman, hadn't changed from his time during the Holocaust. His daily life and trauma kept him in the past, which was reflected in his actions. The Lord of The Flies by William Golding sees a group of boys go back in time in the sense that they are distanced from civilization, and have to live in a manner similar to cavemen. The narrator in The Woman Warrior felt the weight of her family's past reflect in her every move, and felt the obligation to continue her legacy.
The past is an unavoidable reality everyone must face, and perhaps an author's personal ties to the past reflect in this common theme. Maybe just the sheer effect of the past in the life of a human is portrayed through a book; almost as a means for therapy. In the end, the cliché "history repeats itself" is definitely draws full circle in many of the work's Iv'e read.