Green Light And Obsession In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Green Light and Obsession
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald is a novel revolved around chasing a lost dream. The novel’s main character, Gatsby, chases the dream of financial success. Although seeming successful at first, the story ends tragically. This novel implies that individuals should only follow realistic dreams, rather than lost dreams. The main dream in this story is Gatsby’s dream of having the perfect life with Daisy. His obsession with this is portrayed and symbolized through the famous green light.
The green light is first introduced in Chapter 1 when Nick curiously says, “He stretched his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily, I glanced

seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light. (Fitzgerald 21). This light indicates that Gatsby is longing for something nobody is aware of yet in the novel. The green light’s symbolism is not able to be defined yet in the novel, the the meaning it has the Gatsby is clearly great.
Another curious discovery about Gatsby is the reason behind his lavish parties.

Many questions arise in reader’s minds, such as why he throws the parties and what they are for. Nick says, “There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and he champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motor-boats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam (Fitzgerald 43). The lavishness of the parties makes Gatsby seem even more mysterious. Questions arise such as why he throws these parties and what they are

for.
Eventually, these questions are answered and the obsession begins to show. Gatsby eventually tells Nick that the parties are for his cousin, Daisy. Gatsby states his love for Daisy to Jordan Baker. Jordan tells Nick that Gatsby bought a house right across the bay from Daisy to be near to her. Also, the lavish parties are also for her in case she shows up. The green light at the end of the dock symbolized Gatsby’s love and obsession with Daisy.
The obsession does not end here.

Gatsby tries to impress Nick so that he can meet Daisy. He comes up with many ways to impress Nick. Gatsby is extremely concerned as to what Nick may think of him. He says, “I am the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years...He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford,’ or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him after all” (Fitzgerald 70). It is clear that Gatsby is obsessing over impressing Nick with his background to attain his ultimate goal,

Daisy.
The novel eventually explains where Gatsby obtains his obsession from. Gatsby used to be a poor individual. He worked as a janitor in his college to support himself. Eventually, he met Dan Cody, a person that changed his life forever. “To the young Gatz, resting on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, the yacht represented all the beauty and glamor in the world” (Fitzgerald 107). Dan Cody symbolized everything Gatsby ever wanted, which was wealth and glamor. This is when Gatsby began to develop an obsession with obtaining the perfect life. Gatsby finds Daisy appealing because her wealth comes effortlessly to her, and he wants her to be apart of his goal for the perfect life.
Additionally, Gatsby is doing everything in his power to get Daisy to leave her husband. Gatsby believes that it is possible to recreate the past. Although most people know that this is impossible because people are not the same as they were in the past, Gatsby did not want to lose the amount of hope he had left in being with Daisy. He states, “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she had obliterated three years with that sentence they could decide upon the more practical measures to be taken” (Fitzgerald 118). This quote further explains Gatsby’s obsession with recreating the past. It is obvious that Daisy will never admit to never loving Tom, because that would be a lie. Daisy must have also felt pressured by Gatsby’s obsession.
Once Daisy admits that she has once loved Tom, Gatsby’s obsession with recreating the past is dead. Although Gatsby physically died at the end of the novel, he mentally died once his dream died.