The Great Gatsby Green Light Analysis

In “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald, the symbol of the green light plays a significant role in the power and hope for a dream envisioned, and struggle to grasp it. The green light motif serves of a purpose in the text in three different ways. By effectively basing themes that all relate back to the origin of the green light, Fitzgerald portrays the idea of a quest, the unfulfillment of the American Dream, and the idea of figurative blindness.
As stated by Thomas Foster in “How To Read Literature Like a Professor”, “The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge” (3). Throughout Gatsby’s character development, he is reminded of a quest he has been enduring in the efforts to reach his dream of once again being with Daisy Buchanan, a love from his past. While keeping his distance from Daisy for some time, the green light holds the connection and the constant reminder of his dream and the idea of fear of rejection from the past. By creating the imagery of the green light, it can be inferred that the symbol has been created as way to dream of a “perfect future”. In chapter 5, when the dream of Daisy being apart of Gatsby’s life has become a fulfilled reality, it leaves the reader wondering if the symbolic value of the green light holds the same purpose; or if it has returned to simply being a
Without the green light, it would be impossible to see the imagery behind an evasive future for Gatsby, and the longing for something “so close, he could hardly fail to grasp it”, not knowing “that it was already behind him” (180). Throughout the novel, imagery of the green light serves as a basis to all ideas. Untimately, the love Gatsby has for money and Daisy are unfulfilling, leaving the green light as a symbolism of a now darkened past dream of a future, now ungraspable, and tragically