Examples Of Green Light In The Great Gatsby

The past holds a lot of our memories and we wish that we could go back to them. The green light is a concept that is from The Great Gatsby that any human being can relate to. The idea of the green light makes us see into what Gatsby is feeling. Gatsby’s idea of the green light is that he can restore everything and be with the girl of his dreams, he has a strong hope that his dream will become reality. The past is truly never behind us, we have the memories, although they are not physical, we still have that piece of the puzzle of the past. The memories that we have are not always complete, there will most likely always be a missing part of the past (unless you have a photographic memory). Gatsby reaches for his past that is already behind him …show more content…
We wish that he could obtain the past, but it has already been left behind. He lost his chance to take hold of his dream and keep hold of it and we know this, we feel sad for him because he doesn’t understand that it can’t be the same, it never will be again. When Nick says, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (180), Gatsby is always going to be stuck in the past and will continuously be taken back mentally. Gatsby’s past has continued to elude us, it forever will, no matter what there is no way to regain what has been left in the past. Along with leaving Daisy behind five years ago, Gatsby has also left bits and pieces of himself behind, he is missing a part of himself that made Daisy fall in love with him. When he went into the army and then to Oxford, he left his old self in the dirt and created a new being that changed him. When he was penniless was when Daisy was in love with him, he didn’t realize that money didn’t matter. Gatsby didn’t know that Daisy didn’t want money, she just wanted to be with Gatsby and this is where his dream all started to fall apart. If he could have just become fully aware that Daisy wanted him for him and not money then he could have had his idea of the perfect world. Gatsby hopes that one day she will just wander into one of his magnificent parties, but that day will never come. The …show more content…
There are some things that are forgotten in the past that change us and we want to go back to that time and figure out what we lost, just as Gatsby does. Gatsby knows that he has left Daisy behind, he has left his dream behind and he can’t get it back. The green light is there to remind us that our dreams can be unattainable, we can try and try as hard as we want for specific dreams but just like Gatsby, some pieces to the puzzle are lost in the past, never to be recollected. As we grow older, there are memories of the past that we want to be able to go back to and there are small reminders, objects that have significance that bring us back to that memory mentally and not all of the entire puzzle is there. Gatsby has the green light to take him back to when he almost had Daisy and we have items with significance to remind us of times that we wish we could go back to and complete the whole dream. Gatsby can’t let go of the past, he doesn’t want to. Everyone has that one dream that has more significance above all the rest that we can’t let go of. Gatsby can’t let go of his perfect dream of being with Daisy, it’s not even really about her, he just wants her so that he can have his idea of a “perfect” world. Daisy can’t be with Gatsby though, he has changed, he isn’t the same penniless man that she fell in love with. Arnold Weinstein