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What Does The Green Light Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

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Does your class and wealth always help you get what you want? In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick, the main character, lives next door to a rich yet shy figure named Gatsby. Gatsby throws parties all the time, but nobody seems to know who he is. As the story goes on, we find out that Gatsby is in love with Daisy, Nick’s cousin. Behind all of this, Fitzgerald uses light imagery to convey Gatsby’s love for Daisy to show the hope involved in this relationship. A green light across a lake doesn’t seem like anything, right? In the novel, Gatsby is caught by Nick staring across the lake at a green light with his hands in the air. Nick later realizes that the green light across the lake is Daisy’s house. Furthermore, Jordan, Nicks friend, reveals that Gatsby bought the house on that particular spot so Daisy can see it lit up. The green light in the novel represents hope, which later we find out, is part of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. “He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could …show more content…
Gatsby feels the same way when Daisy does the same to him. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light,” said Gatsby (154). As we already know light represents Gatsby’s hope. When Daisy turns off the light, Gatsby’s hope is lost. Furthermore, what Daisy is trying to convey is that the relationship Gatsby wants to happen no longer can. Before this, Gatsby was hiding in the bush waiting to protect Daisy if Tom was to hurt her. Now, she is signaling to him that she can’t escape her relationship with Tom. It could have been a possibility that if Daisy was to go with Gatsby, they can face even bigger problems, especially Daisy since she killed Myrtle, George Wilson’s wife. In conclusion, light imagery’s primary purpose is to describe the relationship between Daisy and Gatsby in terms of

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