


The green light, and more literally Daisy, are the dreams that Gatsby clings to so dearly but that are ultimately impossible for him to attain.

You make an interesting point about the idea of the unattainable dream. That being said I was wondering what people thought about the future, is it always tied to our dreams of the past? Posted on FebruAuthor santanar

Its odd to think as the light as a representation of both the past and future. While it reminded Gatsby of the past with Daisy, it also gave him hope to recapture that past in the future. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – to-morrow we will run farther, stretch out our arms farther…” (Fitzgerald 180). The novel ends with Nick saying how much “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. People seemed more concerned in having fun, making money, and living a lustrous lifestyle rather than planning for the future. People were living in the now and their futures seemed as hazy as the green light. But for America(ns) at the time, I felt as if there was no unattainable dream. In Gatsby’s case, Daisy was the unattainable dream, trying to get back that love that had been lost. In fact the green light also depicts the unattainable dream. In addition to the green lights representation of the love Gatsby and Daisy once had, the green light can also symbolize something more general. The chances of that past coming back to life was as small and minute as the little green light. The light was merely a representation of how close Gatsby had gotten to that beloved past with Daisy, but in reality it was still far. The green light represented a past love that had been lost, and after many years Gatsby had found that love again. We later know that the real reason behind Gatsby moving to West Egg and throwing these lavish and extravagant parties was to have Daisy come to one of them. As he was about to call him, he didn’t, instead he saw him “stretch out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way… Involuntarily I glanced seaward-and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away” (Fitzgerald 21-22). At first I did not really pay much attention to it, but once the story began to unwind I understood what that green light represented. Just having came back home from her cousin Daisy’s house in East Egg, Nick saw Gatsby outside. It is in chapter one where Fitzgerald first mentions it. Scott Fitzgerald plays a lot of emphasis on the green light that was directly across the pond from Gatsby’s house.
