Symbols And Allegories In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, follows the story of a young man named Nick who moves to Long Island seeking fortune. Nick ultimately ends up living next to a mysterious man known as Gatsby whom he knows almost nothing about. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses multiple symbols and allegories to show the mental and physical struggles each character faces. As the story continues, each of the characters affects one another as their fates intertwine. One of the first and most prominent symbols in The Great Gatsby is the green light Gatsby sees every time he stares across the bay. Gatsby lives in West Egg while the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan, lives in East Egg with her husband, Tom. When Nick first sees Gatsby, he describes, “he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in …show more content…
While going out for dinner with Gatsby, Nick meets Meyer Wolfsheim, one of Gatsby’s associates. As Foster mentions in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, the three meeting over dinner is a form of communion. During this time, Nick learns a lot about Wolfsheim, much of which leads him to have an unsettling feeling about the mysterious man. After Nick asks him about his cufflinks, Wolfsheim exclaims, “Finest specimens of human molars” (Fitzgerald 72). Wolfsheim’s disturbing nature and Nick’s distrust of him leads me to believe that Wolfsheim is symbolic of the Devil. He has immense power and control over others. Because of this, I also believe that Gatsby is what is described by Foster as a Faust. When they first met, Gatsby couldn’t be with Daisy because he couldn’t support her as he came from a poor family. So, after they parted ways, Gatsby stopped at nothing to gain the wealth which he thought would bring Daisy back to him. He was willing to do anything to be with her and by joining the crime world and working with Wolfsheim, Gatsby had essentially sold his soul to the