The Great Gatsby is a remarkable story of hope, dreams, and truth. The narrator Nick tells us the story of Gatsby and his journeys with Gatsby through his eyes. What shapes this novel is light throughout major events of the novel to the use of dark vs. create the scene and feelings of the events occurring throughout the novel. In the novel, The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald uses the leitmotif of dark and light to creates an overall feeling of hope or despair in Gatsby’s character during events throughout the novel. The first representations of light in the novel seem hopeful.
The green light seen from his dock, where Gatsby ould spend most of his time hoping and dreaming he would day have Daisy again. The green light is everything to Gatsby, his hopes and dreams all wrapped up into one light he sees everyday that leads to Daisy. Visualizing Gatsby as “… he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away.. This new sense of hope is shown when he stretches out his arms. Hope that he will one day be able to reach his dreams of having Daisy fter so long. In Gatsby’s hope to be together again with Daisy he purposely buys a house directly across the sea from hers.
In another attempt that Daisy might suddenly show up, Gatsby throws extravagant parties at his house, where everyone imaginable attends expect Daisy. “The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. The gleaming light of the parties across the bay from Daisy all thrown for her, every single one Gatsby throws because of this sense of hope he has that Daisy will be ttracted. This not only shows his hope for his dream of having Daisy, but also his faked persona he has created for himself all for Daisy because that’s what he believes she wants and dreams of having.
A glamorous life and striving attempts to get Daisy’s attention all came down to the one moment when Gatsby finally is meeting Daisy for tea. When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire. Two o’clock and the corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin elongating glints upon the roadside wires. The blazing light symbolizes Gatsby’s overwhelming excitement he had that this day had finally come. After five years of waiting this one moment was here and he almost couldn’t believe it. Then it hit him, “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever .
Now it was a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. ” This green light he had looked upon for so long, the extravagant parties he had thrown all for this moment with Daisy and the importance of his only hopes and dreams had all suddenly anished. After five years the green light suddenly meant absolutely nothing and the parties had no purpose. In this moment I believe Gatsby was almost lost. Everything he was and dreamt of being was all because of Daisy. Now that he had her, he questioned if there was anything else to hope for.
As the leitmotif dark and light created a theme of hope and dreams in Gatsby’s life is also created a sense of pain and the harsh realities in Gatsby’s life that he was yet to face. When Daisy and Gatsby finally sit and begin to talk they go to a place where it is darker. The gray windows disappeared as the house glowed full of light… He lit Daisy’s cigarette from a trembling match, and sat down with her on a couch far across the room, where their was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall.
This shows how Daisy and Gatsby both have a sense of dishonesty and want to hide their love for each other because ultimately their ties together is a love affair being rekindles after five years. Though through this harsh reality a glowing light shines through to symbolize Gatsby’s glamour he shows off to Daisy to attract her back to him. As the novel continues Gatsby finds Daisy and Tom at his party. While Daisy and Gatsby venture off in there adventures together at his party, they become drastically close.
Once Gatsby realizes it is time for Daisy to leave, he watches “Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps.. was drifting out the open door. ” As it brings this sense of new possibilities of the romance between the two of them as he watches at the top of the lit stairs. As well as a dark, sad feeling as he watches Daisy drive away with Tom and there is a sense of uneasiness that shows orry in Daisy and Gatsby that they will lose each other because of someone else.
This sense of hope and dreams is all slowly crashing down upon Gatsby, and everything he had created himself to be will all vanish in one split second. The dark light becomes very clear as the last events of the novel approach and reality hits Gatsby hard. As Nick watches Gatsby he analyzes him as this sense of being within as well as without. A place where he has found himself many of times throughout the novel. “So I walked away and left him standing there in the moon-light – watching over nothing. Nick see’s Gatsby standing in the moonlight and it becomes very clear in this moment that Gatsby was after all alone.
This was his first time after being immersed in a life again with Daisy where he had been alone without Tom and Daisy. The emptiness of the moon creates a sense of all these dreams Gatsby once had were ultimately unachievable, and the setting of the dark night makes this scene even more lonelier. This harsh reality of his dreams not being all that they seem not only become to come in full circle then, but also when Gatsby waits for Daisy, so sure that he will come down to him. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there for a minute and then turned out the light.
That one split second when Daisy then turned out her light was the symbol of Gatsby’s loss of Daisy for good. As he waited so long for her unwilling to accept that she was gone. Gatsby stands there in the dark night and it is then realized that Gatsby’s dreams of fulfilling a life with Daisy were no longer there. Daisy was gone, but Gatsby didn’t want to accept it. As Fitzgerald plays with the contrast between light and ark, we as readers can depict that the difference between the two helped show the true symbolization of Gatsby and his dreams and hopes from start to finish.
His hopes and dreams of having Daisy was once a beaming green light at the end of her dock and suddenly became the dull darkness of the night outside of her home at four o’clock in the morning as he waited for something that was ultimately never obtainable in the first place. This leitmotif dark and light not only helps depict symbols throughout the novel, but also broadcasts the feelings of Gatsby’s hope and despair without Nick always being there.
