Theme Of Hope In The Great Gatsby

The Light of Hope

It has been a myth for centuries that if someone were to see a shooting star, they must wish for their hearts desire, and it will someday come true. Whether that be a result of Disney's old saying,“when you wish upon a star, your dreams will true” (Walt Disney), or a result of some random folktale, people still hope that this saying is accurate. All around the world people use tactics such as wishing on daisies and stars in hopes that their wish will come true. These objects, yet plain and simple, have as much of a symbolic meaning as rock on a finger. These objects play a role of hope for a different life. The novel, The Great Gatsby, is about a man, named Jay Gatsby, who spends most of his life dreaming and hoping to one

The day of Gatsby’s date with Daisy, nothing seems to go right in Gatsby’s mind. Daisy arrives late causing Gatsby to believe she is not coming, and he is overly stressed on what to say and how to act if she does show. The author states, “Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain” (Fitzgerald 91). As stress and the feeling of hopelessness starts to rise, the rain becomes stronger and outside gets drearier, there is a loss of light in the world. Gatsby’s emotions correlate with the amount of light and positive weather outside. As his date becomes increasingly better, so does the weather. The author states, “After half an hour the sun shone again” (Fitzgerald 93). Within the half hour of it raining and becoming sunny again, Gatsby had loosened up with Daisy and the stress and hopeless feeling has vanished, along with the rain. Even Gatsby’s friend Nick notices this parallel, and tells Gatsby the rain has stopped to hint that the tension is over and it is again light outside. However as Gatsby and Daisy fall back into love again, Daisy is overcome by emotion and she no longer is as happy where she is in life. She realizes that when she lost hope in Gatsby returning from war, she lost her chance and hope of being with him and so she cries. The author then states, “But outside Gatsby’s window it began to rain again so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated

Nick’s first encounter of Gatsby is seen from his property, Gatsby reaching out over the bay. However, Nick notices that he is reaching towards something more than just the bay, he states, “Involuntarily I glanced seaward-and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (Fitzgerald 26). Later it is learned that it is Daisy’s dock that harvests the green light. Gatsby had built his house on the property across the bay from Daisy dreaming of them one day reuniting. By Gatsby reaching out to Daisy’s dock, it was almost as if he was reaching out to her, hoping she would come back to him. He reached to the light like a child would to a star, because that’s what the light meant to him. The author later mentions the green light again when Daisy moves closer to Gatsby the day they reunified. Fitzgerald states, “Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (Fitzgerald 98). At this point Gatsby is beginning to realize that the reunion is not living up to his expectations. The memories and emotions had rekindled but his hopes of he and Daisy picking up where they left off were nonexistent. Slowly the light of hope is burning out at this point and turning back into a small green ball of heat, and nothing more. Finally, the author leaves his audience with one last note about light by stating,