How To Reach The Green Light In The Great Gatsby

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Tyler Joseph, a musician and songwriter of the band twenty one pilots, once sung, "What if my dream does not happen...I don 't want to know who I would be, when I wake up from a dreamers sleep." In the New York Times article "Gatsby 's Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers", it says that teenagers today are dreamers, hoping for their lives to be better and trying to achieve their goals. There are outside and self imposed pressures causing them to have the idea that they must reach their dream in order to be happy. In many ways, they are all rushing to reach the green light, similar to how Jay Gatsby was in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby 's life is revolved around one thing: having Daisy. However, due to his unnatural …show more content…
He believes one thing is necessary to achieve his goals, similarly to how teenagers believe that getting into one specific college will achieve their goals. When he finally gets together with Daisy at Nick 's house, it seems like his dream is finally coming true. Carraway notices Gatsby himself "had been so full of the idea for so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable intensity" (Fitzgerald 92). If Gatsby had used this incredible characteristic of his to achieve something for the greater good, then he would have gotten more out of it than he did. Gatsby only focuses on one, selfish goal. He directs all his time, energy, and imagination thinking about it. This builds up, and when five years passes, he suddenly has this idea of a person who cannot possibly be human due to the unrealistic expectations he has for Daisy. Again, this parallels in the lives of everyday teens. They know their dream college for four plus years and they work for it and imagine their future there, only to be disappointed because their expectations are set too high. High expectations only leave a person wanting more. In the hotel, Gatsby reveals to Tom that Daisy never loved him. Daisy realizes that this is untrue and tells both men that she loved them both. She tells Gatsby, "Oh, you want too much!...I love you now—isn 't that enough?" (132). It is not enough for Gatsby. Daisy 's love in the moment could have been enough if he wanted her simply for who she is. People cannot be greater than they are just because someone wishes them to be. Teenagers cannot become rich and successful in their thirties because they wish to be. The media has a massive influence over teenagers and the messages it displays to them are that they need to achieve more in order to be happier. However, the way to be happy and live happily is not by setting

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