Green Light Symbolism

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The yearning for happiness and the upcoming future is a feeling that almost everyone has in their lives. Throughout the world many cling on to that feeling which provides comfort and purpose for their lives, as well as a destiny that they may someday reach. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the symbolic meaning of the green light is substantial to Gatsby and also to the readers. For others this green light can represent the loss of a great era and the longing for that quality of time, or a simple goal in life that awaits to be accomplished. To Jay Gatsby, the green light symbolizes his love and desire for Daisy Buchanan whom he does not only love for her character, but for what she represents. Nick Carraway, the novel’s narrator, …show more content…
Nick also discovers the joy that Daisy evokes in Gatsby through her presence, in conjunction with the years he has waited to have her in his arms. When he moves in next to Gatsby, Nick sees him standing in the lawn looking at the stars. He describes Gatsby as being content to be alone and mentions “he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling”(20). Witnessing this, Nick realizes the object Gatsby is gazing at which is the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. It is not until later when he realizes the true meaning of this green light to Daisy, as well as the pain he had yearning for Daisy. The trembling that Nick perceives in Gatsby while looking off into the distance epitomizes the pain he feels, and the love he has lacked for many years. Later on in the novel, Gatsby and Daisy are sitting together with Nick at Gatsby’s house, almost forgetting who Nick is due to the intense romantic connection they have with each other. As he is about to leave, …show more content…
Today throughout sports, businesses, and other groups of work, the past has shaped the views on people’s future as well as their desire for those previous precious moments. For Gatsby the past exhibits his previous happiness and that same love he has been seeking for many years. This feeling makes him want to recreate the happiness he had before with Daisy in his life, and creates erratic ideas in his mind. For instance, while Nick is with talking with Gatsby after his party about Daisy’s non-existent love for Tom, Gatsby exclaims, “Can’t repeat the past?, why of course you can”(110). From this Nick understands the desperation that Gatsby has to repeat his previous experiences, as well as the spontaneous reaction to repeating the past. Ever since he had met Daisy, Gatsby had gathered an important idea of himself that had gone into loving Daisy. The idea that Gatsby found created confusion ever since he had met her, and cause him to want to start over to find that single idea. In contrast to this, many others have craved something from their past whether it is an idea, object, or feeling that needs to be recreated. One interesting example of this was Babe Ruth, a baseball legend who was traded to the Yankees from the Red Sox in 1919. This trade exhibited the importance of him as a player and

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