West Egg In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Nick’s American Dream was the opposite of Gatsby’s; he always strived to see and do new things every day, constantly reaching for the future, while Gatsby only wanted to relive his past with Daisy. Once Nick feels like there is nothing left for him to discover in New York, he moves back west to rediscover the lost excitement after Gatsby’s death. Nick also believed that Gatsby was foolish in his American Dream because it was unattainable. Nick uses imagery to illustrate the appeal of West Egg before Gatsby’s death, describing the illusions of “those gleaming, dazzling parties”, stating that he could “still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant” (Fitzgerald 179). After Gatsby’s death, Nick’s search for his American Dream came to a halt, as West Egg was no longer a new and exciting place for him. Gatsby’s parties represented a new, unseen life to Nick, therefore progressing his dream of striving towards a newer and better future. Once Gatsby is gone, and therefore the progression of Nick’s dream, life on West Egg goes back to a normal and Nick strives for new opportunities and experiences

To Gatsby, the green light represented a past that he was constantly striving for, but was never truly in his grasp. Nick states that “to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther”, illustrating the extremity to which Gatsby’s dream had gone; he would not stop trying until he reached the past (Fitzgerald 180). To Nick, however, the light represented the future that he was constantly running towards, although not as persistently as Gatsby. Although Nick states that Gatsby’s dream “year by year recedes before us [Nick and Gatsby]”, it has already passed them, as Gatsby has died striving for a past that he cannot recreate (Fitzgerald