When first opening the book, The Great Gatsby is about passion between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, but once you dig down deeper into the soul of the book you find that, in fact, that the book is more displaying the American dream, or in reality, the dissolution of it. The green light, first shown in chapter 1, represents the hopes for the future of Jay Gatsby, but in reality the light is representing that the desire for money and pleasure surpass more noble goals of Jay Gatsby. The green light, though, is faint from where Gatsby can see it, symbolizing the fact that he could not fulfill is dream of winning Dasiy over, because in the end, death takes its toll upon him.
The Green light is compared to by Nick as the green bulk of America rising from the ocean, or how the pilgrims most have first seen America. Between West Egg and New York city lies the valley of ashes, a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ash. It represents the moral and social decay of the American dream, from the pursuit of wealth. Over looking the valley is “The eyes of Dr.
T. J. Ecklesburg”. The unblinking eyes represent God, looking down upon the ash. As Fitzgerald describes it, the American Dream started out as, discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In his book, though, money, and social values corrupt the dream, especially on East Egg, which represents the “aristocracy” that was formed after the war, by the soldiers who came home money hungry.
Gatsby instill Daisy with an ideal of perfection which she does not possess As Gatsby’s dream of winning the hand of Daisy, is ruined by the unworthiness of the her, just as the American dream is ruined by the unworthiness of money and pleasure. When Jays dream of winning Daisy crumbles, all he is left to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where, to him, American values have not decayed. .
