Examples Of The Green Light In The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts Jay Gatsby as hopeful who throughout the novel always pursues one individual, his lover Daisy from five years ago. The green light exemplifies Gatsby’s single goal and dream. Considering Gatsby has spent the last five years being a very successful bootlegger, to get Daisy to be his would be Gatsby’s American Dream and his token to his success. The American Dream for Daisy however consists of having a materialistic lifestyle and wealth. Fitzgerald uses the motif of the green light to emphasize the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby in order to convey the unethical logic of how society views the American Dream as having wealth, yet many still cannot fulfill ones happiness after achieving it. The green light represents society’s aspiration and the likelihood of accomplishing the materialistic American dream. Coincidentally, when Nick and Gatsby encounter each other for the first time, it happens to be the first time Fitzgerald introduces the green light. The green light points to the idea that his goal seems impossible to reach and achieve when Fitzgerald writes, “distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away”(Fitzgerald 21). This foreshadows how Gatsby goes about his life and his desire to have Daisy that eventually leads him to his
The color green also generally stands for the future, life, and exploration, which Fitzgerald proves in this quote. Nick portrays an indifferent melancholy tone on Gatsby’s life when he states “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us”(Fitzgerald 180). The word “recedes” signifies how Gatsby’s feelings never go away and always reoccur. This shows significance because Gatsby reveals his incapability to move one from Daisy and his past. He ends up only battling himself and chasing his own lonely sad fate. The incapability to move on shows Gatsby’s hardships and the American dream