What Is The Green Light In The Great Gatsby

We all experience loss, heartache, and sorrow, nobody wants to go through these emotional pain, but it is something you can’t avoid, it is just part of our life. The past, it is something you can’t leave behind, but sometime it is you to decided if the past is too important to hold on to or not. If someone holds onto their past, means that they are living in the past and not enjoying the present. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby, the title character Jay Gatsby catches the attention of his readers. Gatsby surrounds himself with expensive belongings and wealthy people and lives in the past. He is the protagonist, who want more than he can have, even when he was small. Gatsby is a newly rich Easterner who revolved his life for one desire

To Gatsby, the green light represents his dream and something that he can’t have, which is Daisy. If he gets her that would be completing his dreams and wishes. The first time the green light is seen in the novel is also the first time Nick sees Gatsby. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald,180). This quote is a metaphor for Gatsby, struggle, and his dreams. He moved forward but kept his past in the present. The past functions as the source of his ideas about the future and they cannot escape

After reuniting with Daisy, the narrator describes Gatsby’s expression,“...I saw the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness” (Fitzgerald, 95), his expression showed emptiness, and the he realized that the women of his dream may not live up his high expectations or what he want her to do. For 5 years, Gatsby lived a dream that one day that he and Daisy will be reunited. Now that he has her, there is nothing that will be motivating enough for him to work. Even after waiting for five years, Gatsby is still not willing to admit that Daisy is not the love of his life. Gatsby is so involved with his dream that he can’t bring himself to face the reality. The narrator asks Gatsby to see the reality and realize that the, “He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn't bear to shake him free” (Fitzgerald,148). This shows that Gatsby is very hopeful when it come to Daisy, even though he knows that Daisy can’t leave her husband, still Gatsby completely blinds himself by her love. The love and devotion for Daisy shows Gatsby as a man of tremendous imagination, and the ability to dream and hope. Gatsby changes himself of how he wanted to be seen and how he wanted to present