The Green Light Theory
The Green Light Theory The American existed at is prime during the 1920s, when everything changed for the United States. According to Fitzgerald, The American Dream became corrupt in the 20s and he proved in The Great Gatsby. His main character Jay Gatsby embodied the image of the corrupted American Dream, and “the novel describes the death of a romantic vision of America” (Person Jr.). Throughout the entire novel Gatsby used his wealth to his advantage to win his love back without rationally thinking about repercussions. In the end, Fitzgerald’s use of the color green to represent the hopes and dreams of Gatsby shows that attempts to recreate the past end in failure. In the beginning of the book, Fitzgerald characterized Gatsby as a somewhat humble man who kept to himself. He had a quirky personality that had a mysterious twinge to it. Fitzgerald established one of Gatsby’s best physical features as his smile, referring to it as “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance” (Fitzgerald 48). He portrayed Gatsby’s smile as this because Gatsby kept certain things about himself concealed. Daisy remained depicted as the epitome of a 1920s flapper during the novel. Fitzgerald emphasized, “her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes, and a bright passionate mouth” (Fitzgerald 9). These were the features of Daisy that Gatsby fell in love with. Others, however, illustrated Daisy as “vicious emptiness” (Person Jr.). This description was an “attribution to her of tremendous power over Gatsby and his fate” (Person Jr.) Though Daisy symbolized all of Gatsby’s illusions, she had her own dream, which collided with Gatsby’s dream. According to Leland Person Jr, “if Daisy fails to measure up to Gatsby’s fantasy, therefore, for his part clearly fails to measure up to hers” (Person). The dream remained a mutual failure caused by the inability to live up to someone’s expectation, destroying the dream as