Essay On The Green Light In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, includes one very significant symbol: the green light. Situated at the end of Daisy’s dock, the green light is barely visible from Gatsby’s mansion on the other side of the river. This inanimate object embodies many complex meanings and influences several of the main characters, including Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. The green light greatly affects Gatsby by symbolizing his hopes and dreams, representing the hazy future and embodying the American Dream. Gatsby compares the green light to his former love interest, Daisy Buchanan. After returning from combat in World War One, Gatsby hopes of marrying Daisy, but she marries Tom Buchanan. Gatsby anticipates that receiving a formal education in addition to the accumulation of a vast
Success and wealth significantly defined one’s status in society. Gatsby appears to be a successful man after he receives a formal education at a highly regarded institution and collects an immense amount of money from organized crime. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby…invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” As he gazes at the green light on Daisy’s dock, Gatsby hopes that his success, a testament to the American Dream, will assist him in achieving his goal of winning back Daisy. The green light affects Gatsby in many ways; his dreams of Daisy, his desires for the future, his fruition of the American Dream. Gatsby pictures Daisy with an ideal perfection that she could not possibly embody and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to reality. Because of this, Gatsby’s vision of her falls apart, which also reveals the corruption of wealth and the absurdity of the goal. One who reads the novel can learn from Gatsby’s shortcomings and think twice about setting unattainable