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How Is The Green Light Shown In The Great Gatsby

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According to the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, May Lamberton Becker expresses, “... the depressing truth that they are what they are not in spite of money and power, but because of these.” The failure of the American dream demonstrates the overall theme Fitzgerald appeals to show appearance vs. reality. Gatsby characterizes the American dream because he had nothing. He put much effort into achieving his dream, but failed with Daisy going back to Tom. Just like the green light across the bay, the Valley of Ashes, and the East and West Egg lifestyle, the American dream annihilates too. The green light is a significant symbol in which Gatsby is striving for. It represents nature, envy, money, and desire. He is reaching out towards it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal, which is to have Daisy. Nick narrates, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the organistic future that year by year recedes before us” (180). There is a destruction of the American …show more content…

The valley demonstrates the destroying American dream. The Valley of Ashes represents the poor who live near ashes and moral decay. The ashes show a symbol of death and that the American dream is impossible to achieve. It also shows the death of Myrtle and how your body has been dehumanized. Nick says, “Over the ashheaps that giant eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg kept their vigil, but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away” (124). The eyes see everything, including Myrtle’s accident and Gatsby’s car hitting her. As the ashes pile more and more, the American dream is more harder to maintain. As people die, the dream dies also. The recklessness of 1920s and the ruin of America are the

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