What Does The Green Light Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

The American Dream--the ideal that, within the borders of the United States, all kinds of people have equal opportunity to achieve their highest aspirations--is one that people have carried with them since its coining in the 1931 novel Epic of America. Hopes and dreams are always good to hold onto as motivation factors throughout life, but when combined with the common interpretation of the American Dream that everything can be achieved, dreams can have disastrous possessive holds on life. Jay Gatsby, a main character from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, is a prime example of the effect the American Dream can have on a person. Throughout his best-seller The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the green light, Gatsby’s mansion, and the

As one of the first symbols to appear in the novel, the green light symbolizes Gatsby’s American Dream: to reunite with his previous lover Daisy, who has since moved on and married Tom Buchanan. However, as the years pass, what started out as his American Dream has quickly become an obsession. Gatsby spends his nights staring out at the green light, which sits across the lake on the Buchanans’ dock, and “[stretches] out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way … he was trembling” (Fitzgerald 21). The green light symbolizes how close yet distant Daisy is. However, later in the novel, after Gatsby reunites with Daisy, the green light loses every bit of its importance. As Nick described, “[p]ossibly it had occurred to [Gatsby] that the colossal significance of the light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him

In an attempt to win Daisy over from afar, Gatsby buys an exorbitant mansion, “a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden” (Fitzgerald 5). Gatsby fills his mansion with the most extravagant items and people he can find, from fountains to golden toilets to circus performers. Although Gatsby’s story is the perfect rags-to-riches story, wealth could not mean less to him. The wealth was all just a facade to draw Daisy into his house, perhaps to one of his parties, allowing them to reunite. After they reunited, Gatsby “revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes… he stared at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real,” making it clear that he had no interest in the expensive goods he filled his house with, but instead only cared what Daisy thought (Fitzgerald 91). As the novel continues, it becomes evident that Daisy is too far gone with a new life and new family. Without Daisy, Gatsby has nothing left to live for. His rise up the social classes meant nothing without the prize at the end of the road: Daisy. His wealth did not satisfy him without Daisy by his side to enjoy it. Although