The Mirage in the Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a book of love and tragedy that all leads back to dreams and ideas, but never reality. Gatsby is a man of great wealth and is truly rich. Or is he? The Great Gatsby has many disguises that play a major role in several characters' lives, but mostly Gatsby's'. Gatsby believes that he will be very successful and get what he wants, including Daisy, if he is rich. He succeeded in getting money and living a life of luxury, but is never truly rich. He is always so set on the future and what things could be if this, or if that happens, that he never lives in the present. Because Gatsby never lives in the present, he ends up doing that permanently, and by the end of the book, he lives no more. When Gatsby was alive, he seemed never to be happy, because he was never satisfied with himself; Gatsby tried to change himself. He always tried to reach for his vision, which is represented by the green light, but never seemed to achieve it because he didn't ever live in the life he had; Gatsby lived in the life he wanted. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses green light to represent the unreachable dream in the future that is always being sought after and wanted by Gatsby, but never obtained.

In The Great Gatsby, the green light is visible to many and always distant. To some, like Tom, it is just a light, but to others, like Gatsby, it is their hopeful future. As Tom said in chapter one, "I glanced seaward-and distinguished nothing except a green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of the dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness"(Gatsby 26). He saw a green light. That is all, just a light that may have been at the end of the dock. When Gatsby vanished, this represented him approaching and trying to attain the green light, which was his future he sought after and believed in. As Marius Bewley agrees, the green light represents his faith, "An image of that green light, symbol of Gatsby's faith, burns across the bay,"(Bewley 24). Since the green light represents Gatsby's faith, it is hard for him not believe in it and reach for it. In a way, the green light represent assurance, and he relies on it; it is his faith.

To Gatsby, his idealistic future, his green light, is associated with Daisy and so she is his dream that will never be reached. It is later in the book, in chapter five, when the green light starts to relate to Daisy, because Daisy becomes part of Gatsby's desired future, "If it wasn't for the mist I could see your home across the bay. You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock,"(Gatsby 98). Eventually, Gatsby wants to arrive at that green light, grasp it, and develop his life into it, with Daisy. As Marius Bewley says, "For Gatsby, Daisy does not exist in herself. She is the green light that signals him into the heart of his ultimate vision,"(Bewley 19). In view of the fact that the green light is Gatsby's