Gatsby: The Green Light

"Involuntarily I glanced seaward -- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far way, that might have been the end of a dock" (The Great Gatsby, 21).

After Nick's comically horrible dinner party in East Egg, he sees Mr. Gatsby alone outside of his mansion stretching his arms out toward the water and trembling. All that Nick sees is a green light across the water, which I decided must be a symbol for something! For Gatsby, the green light represented something for which he was hoping, searching, and yearning. Or, you know, someone.

Chapter four presents Jordan Baker's little frame story that unites all of Nick's previous anecdotes. Jordan tells Nick, "Well, about six weeks ago, she heard the name Gatsby for the first time in years" (77). That was back in the dinner party from chapter one when Jordan brought up the name Gatsby, someone she knew from West Egg. Jordan also tells Nick, "Then he [Gatsby] began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found" (79). That was back in chapter three when Gatsby secretly spoke to Jordan, leaving Nick alone to observe Gatsby's inebriated guests.

Jay Gatsby and Daisy Fay shared a brief special connection in the past but then went their separate ways. When they reunite in chapter five, Mr. Gatsby tells Daisy, "'You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock'" (92). Nick eloquently notes, "His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one" (93). Even though years passed, Gatsby has maintained his (slightly creepy) wonder and appreciation for Daisy Buchanan.

I think this is an important theme in the novel about the obsession of the determined heart of man. "No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart" (96).