The great gatsby essay 2

In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald writes about America in the 1920s through a group of fictional characters, the main being Jay Gatsby. Throughout the novel, Jay Gatsby pursues the ‘American Dream’ by striving for wealth and material possessions as a path towards happiness. As Fitzgerald saw it, the American Dream was an impossible and unrealistic concept that people would constantly reach for but never achieve. Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream is only a concept of perfection by using symbolism throughout the story. He uses a ‘green light’ in the story which symbolizes Gatbsy’s desire to have a life with a woman named Daisy Buchanan, who is married to another man. The colour white is depicted in the story to mask corruption and to symbolize the fake and dishonest 1920s society. The Valley of Ashes is a fictional place where the rich recklessly throw away their waste to let the matterless people to deal with. All these symbols are used by Fitzgerald to critique society in the 1920s in different ways.

Nick states: ”Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock.” (p.169) The colour green is traditionally associated with money and hope and one of the most memorable images is The Great Gatsby is the ‘green light’. The ‘green light’  is pitched out at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s Dock and in chapter one, Gatsby stretches his arms out over the sound that is between Daisy’s and Gatsby’s houses towards the green light. Gatsby believes that he will one day touch this green light and realise his dream, winning back Daisy’s love. The green light represents Gatsby’s endless desire for his lost love and his dreams. Before Tom and Daisy got married, Gatsby and Daisy were engaged but Daisy broke it up and married the rich Tom Buchanan. Gatsby thinks that the reason she is with Tom is that he is too poor. He believes he can only win her over if he earns enough money. So he earns a lot of money, albeit illegally, and throws his lavish parties to try to be part of the rich group that Daisy belongs to. Even though Daisy seems to like him, she doesn’t end up leaving her rich unfaithful husband so Gatsby doesn’t realise his dream. Even though he strived towards his “American Dream’ by working hard and becoming rich, he doesn’t end up getting what he wanted.  In the book, the green light is minute and far away, and it symbolizes that Gatsby was always destined to fail. Fitzgerald is using the symbol of the green light to say that even if people in the 1920s work hard and get wealthy, it is not a sure way to make them happy, they may not realise their American dreams.

Fitzgerald uses the colour white in The Great Gatsby to represent purity, innocence and honesty. The characters Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Jordan Baker and Daisy Buchanan are all associated with the colour white somewhere in the novel. For example, when Nick first gets invited to one of Gatsby’s amazing parties, he wanted to make the best impression he could so he dressed in white. This shows that Nick wanted to appear untainted and honest to Gatsby and the other guests. Jay Gatsby also dresses in white when he meets Daisy after five long years of separation. “and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-coloured tie, hurried in” (p.84) As this meeting was tremendously important for Gatsby, he chose the white flannel suit for a reason – to be viewed as pure, innocent and honest so he could impress Daisy and reunite with her. Daisy is closely associated with the colour white in the novel, wearing a white dress when she first meets Gatsby as well as when Nick visits her in East Egg. Her house is full of the colour white and her name is even the name of a white flower. It could easily make people feel she is pure, noble, flawless and innocent when they meet her for the first time. That is why Gatsby is infatuated with her throughout his life and regards her as his American Dream. However white actually symbolises superficiality, ruthlessness and selfishness to a great extent in the novel. Underneath her pure appearance, Daisy is superficial, cold and selfish. Her life is full of nothing but luxury and she does not do anything of value with her time. She even says, “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon, and the day after that, and the next thirty years?” (P 168) She represents the hollow and superficial upper class of the 1920s, thus Fitzgerald is critiquing society by showing that even if people appear good, that may not be the case. He is saying that some people hide behind what they wear or what they do, and do not always show their true colours. Because Gatsby believes Daisy is his dream, Fitzgerald is indicating that Gatsby’s dream is worthless and unattainable.

The Valley of Ashes is a grey and depressing place where everything is coloured grey. The colour grey is a basic shade that symbolises bleakness, emptiness and death. The Valley of Ashes first comes into the novel in Chapter 2. “This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.“(p.28) It is a long stretch of desolate land between West Egg and New York City, created by the dumping of industrial ashes. Every grey thing in the Valley of Ashes makes people feel depressed and hopeless. One character, George Wilson, symbolises the plight of the poor as he lives in the valley and loses his vitality as a result.  Fitzgerald is critiquing the 1920 society by saying that the rich have made money on industry and carelessly toss the waste resulting in a dull and poverty-stricken stretch of land (the Valley of Ashes). The people who live there don’t matter at all to those have selfishly left their waste there. another consequence of the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses the Valley of Ashes to show the moral and social decay that has resulted from the pursuit of the American dream, as the rich indulge themselves with nothing but their own leisure. 

The Great Gatsby correctly captures the characteristics and mood of the 1920s , the Jazz Age. The symbols that are used throughout the novel play an important role in evolving the plot and helping us understand the topic. The green light that is at the end of Daisy’s dock symbolises Gatsby’s hope and dreams while also capturing the corruption of his life. The colour white is Daisy’s colour which symbolises the empty and selfishness of the upper class while still representing pure beauty. The colour grey sets the style for the whole novel which shows the disillusionment of the American Dream and helps us understand the novel more easily. All of these symbols present the American Dream as a hoax showing that you have to be born into wealth to reap the benefits. At the end of the novel, Fitzgerald writes, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther.” This description is saying that even though people strive towards the American Dream, it is not accessible. Society may still strive for it but cannot achieve it.