Gatsby Green Light Analysis

The Great Gatsby is a novel within a novel. It holds symbols on every page, and new motifs and symbols pop out between each line. It holds the truth behind the american dream and the social aspects of Americans that even take place today. Jay Gatsby started out as a regular (poor) man, but after being introduced to money and the perfect life that wealthy appear to be living put him into a daze and he kept his eyes upon that horizon. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, he uses the symbolism of The Green Light and The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to encompass the theme of the American Dream, and he uses both to expand the meaning of the novel and the characteristics and dreams of the characters and how money has corrupted the people.

(Fitzgerald) “ Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.” (Fitzgerald, 21). In the beginning of the novel,Nick sees Gatsby for the first time upon Gatsby’s dock, and he looks as if he is trying to grasp the light, and take it in for himself. We later find out the green light is from Daisy’s dock and can infer that she was this fantasy he hoped for, and he felt because he worked so hard for her that he deserved it which corresponds with the meaning of the American dream, and one of the reason the book signals at the dying of the American Dream is because Gatsby did not reach his dream, that he so desperately longed for. In the article, From Wonderland to Wasteland, it continually talks about the emerald city, which is green, and compares it back to the green light. “Those Green symbols, along with the green light at the end of the buchanans dock, are merely smaller and later versions of the emerald

For people like Tom in the Great Gatsby, the eyes stand as God because what they’re doing is sinful and wrong and they are aware of that. “Terrible place isn’t it,” said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg ” (Fitzgerald, 26). Tom is a perfect example of a really greedy person who has never had to work for anything and is another example of how money completley corrupts people because it has become a basic need for Americans. After Tom picks up his girl from the valley of ashes he looks up at Doctor Eckleburg and feels guilty for a second, but because of his money he is assured that all his money will protect him and he can always stand behind his money. “And, entering or leaving the city, one cannot escape the valley of ashes and the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.” (Twayne publishers) This basically explains the same thing except that wealthy or not you can never escape the eyes of god and that someone will always know if you’re a lie or a cheat. The American dream and the upper class as fall around money,but the corruption of these are also due to