Dreams In The Great Gatsby
Dreams
Whether lavish and extravagant, or humble and mundane, they’re something that everybody has, but not everybody gets. Dreams are often sought after with such great desire for the possibility of it coming to existence, that all rational ideas are pushed aside and reality is warped. The essence of this is perfectly captured in Jay Gatsby’s character of Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby and can be likened to Laura Wingfield of Tennessee William's, The Glass Menagerie, and the narrator of Hunger in New York City by Simon J. Ortiz.
The celebrity everyone longs to be is Gatsby, a wealthy luminary that is known by all of New York. He owns thousands of stocks and bonds in Wall Street and hundreds of magnificent mansions, beautiful, luxurious …show more content…
He is introduced from the beginning of the book, staring off into the distance at a green light across his dock, but is kept partially hidden and is seen speaking starting from Chapter 3, which only adds to his mystery. Furthermore, Gatsby was a hopeful young man, full of life, with dreams stretched across the glittering horizon of New York. Nick describes him as someone who “had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in …show more content…
Physically, it is the light at Daisy’s dock in the East Egg which is right across from Gatsby’s in the West Egg. On several occasions, Gatsby is seen sitting at his dock, staring at that light as if it is something he could just almost reach. To Gatsby, the green light symbolizes his relationship with Daisy. It’s something he earnestly wishes for, trying to recreate himself despite his past and build a better future, one with Daisy. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” As a social construct, the green light can be interpreted as the American Dream; a vision of hundreds of thousands of Americans, both dirt-poor and filthy-rich. A vision, that they believe that they can put their past behind them, and build themselves, against all odds and social
Whether lavish and extravagant, or humble and mundane, they’re something that everybody has, but not everybody gets. Dreams are often sought after with such great desire for the possibility of it coming to existence, that all rational ideas are pushed aside and reality is warped. The essence of this is perfectly captured in Jay Gatsby’s character of Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby and can be likened to Laura Wingfield of Tennessee William's, The Glass Menagerie, and the narrator of Hunger in New York City by Simon J. Ortiz.
The celebrity everyone longs to be is Gatsby, a wealthy luminary that is known by all of New York. He owns thousands of stocks and bonds in Wall Street and hundreds of magnificent mansions, beautiful, luxurious …show more content…
He is introduced from the beginning of the book, staring off into the distance at a green light across his dock, but is kept partially hidden and is seen speaking starting from Chapter 3, which only adds to his mystery. Furthermore, Gatsby was a hopeful young man, full of life, with dreams stretched across the glittering horizon of New York. Nick describes him as someone who “had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in …show more content…
Physically, it is the light at Daisy’s dock in the East Egg which is right across from Gatsby’s in the West Egg. On several occasions, Gatsby is seen sitting at his dock, staring at that light as if it is something he could just almost reach. To Gatsby, the green light symbolizes his relationship with Daisy. It’s something he earnestly wishes for, trying to recreate himself despite his past and build a better future, one with Daisy. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” As a social construct, the green light can be interpreted as the American Dream; a vision of hundreds of thousands of Americans, both dirt-poor and filthy-rich. A vision, that they believe that they can put their past behind them, and build themselves, against all odds and social