The Great Gatsby Light Analysis

The color green is often seen in the spring, when the trees and the flowers have their lives breathed back into them by the new warm air. The majority of what one sees is green at this time, when the grass, leaves, and buds are fresh. The sun becomes hotter and brighter, for it is the one responsible for this recent life and powerful light. The color green is easily associated with life, as light is connected to a source of power or a want or a need. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the significant green light at the end of the dock symbolizes the value of life to Jay Gatsby, contributing to the overall theme of the novel. The narrator of the novel-- Daisy Buchanan’s cousin Nick-- tells Gatsby’s story almost as if he was looking through the man’s eyes himself. Although the point of view is really

Without her, he has no care to live. He admits to Nick that he tried so hard to die when he fought in the war because he could not be with his true love. Without her, his life is meaningless. Without his green light, his life (to him) has no value. She is the only thing that can make him happy-- not drinks, parties, or wealth. He wants only her. He filled the gap between his house and the dock with all these luxuries he didn't want to distract himself and Daisy with what was really going on. Nick becomes, “...aware of the old island here that flowered once for the Dutch sailors’ eyes-- a fresh, green breast of the new world,” (180). Nick explains that the fresh green showed signs of life. Green surrounded Gatsby, but he only desired that green light at the end of the dock; the thing of most value to him, even more than his own life. Daisy was his only hope and dream, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us,” (180). Gatsby, the boat against Daisy’s current, would let nothing stop him from obtaining his life: Daisy, his green