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Green Light In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the symbol of green light to show the impossibility of the American Dream. The story takes place in New York in 1920s and has an unexplainable main character named Gatsby, whose dream is to win back an attractive and wealthy girl named Daisy. This want of Gatsby’s illustrates The American Dream. Although the American Dream seemed more achievable than ever in the 1920s, Fitzgerald renders a much darker side of the situation, filled with dissimulation, impropriety, and shallow-pleasure. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is a symbol of society’s immorality. Daisy’s disloyalty towards their relationship and Gatsby mirror failure of the American Dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the green …show more content…

Once, Daisy comes over to Nick’s house so Gatsby can meet and tell her about the green light; “we could see your home across the bay…You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (Fitzgerald 98). When Gatsby is telling Daisy about the green light, he is showing his aspiration for her and how much he wants her in his life. The green light he looks at now vanishes because the distance is gone. The light loss its importance now that Gatsby seems to have accomplished it. One evening, Gatsby and Daisy take his car to go home; that same evening, Michaelis saw Myrtle and Wilson fight and after a little while Myrtle runs into the street and got struck by a car “The “death car,” as the newspaper called it, didn’t stop... Michaelis wasn’t even sure of its color- he told the first policeman that it was light green” (Fitzgerald 144). Gatsby only cares about Daisy and winning her back, he disregards the fact that Daisy caused the accident and is responsible for Myrtle’s death. Daisy hides her crime behind Gatsby, but he ignores her crime to win her back. Almost all character's dream dies when Myrtle dies. Fitzgerald uses the “death car” to illustrate the death of Gatsby’s American

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