The world is run by dreamers, and I mean that in every sense of that beautifully simple, yet profound word “dream”. The human capability to have ambitions that are beyond anybody’s possible capacity has a kind of cruel yet marvelously charismatic charm that sort of allows for people to have faith, to believe, in these wild and most likely unobtainable goals. This very “dreamer” quality of faith and belief, if matched with enough determination, can make the seemingly impossible, possible. Gatsby’s quest for the “green light” and the powerful meaning that is completely behind it reveals to us that very quality that made Nick describe him as “great”, Gatsby’s unbelievable and undeniably incredible capability to dream.
With all the world accessible to dream about, Gatsby’s dreams focus on one thing, an idolized version of the woman he loved five years before the story’s setting, that the woman herself could never live up to. Nonetheless, Gatsby’s efforts to achieving this dream and any other goals splashed throughout his life until this point have, if nothing else, shown this man’s incredible determination to get what he wants. In a conversation with Nick, Gatsby speaks of the way he has lived his life since he was a child, saying “my life cannot stay like this, it’s got to keep going up”. This world that he envisions having a continual upward trajectory obviously has Daisy along his side the full way through, which speaks the importance of what he has done to get this far and the reasons behind his achievements. Gatsby’s determination is the spitting image of the “American Dream”, as he came from nothing and became a somebody, yet Gatsby cannot be happy with this as the American Dream cannot compete with the dreams that Gatsby is still undoubtedly determined to reach. Nick compares the way Gatsby looks upon the green light to the way the first settlers of America must have seen the land on which the light currently stands, further expressing the importance that Gatsby has placed in the light as a symbol of his dreams.
Gatsby’s obsession with the past in relation to its relevance in the future is a particular ideology that leads him to clash with Nick on several instances. In a discussion between the two, after the only one of Gatsby’s parties that Daisy had and would ever attend, Gatsby reveals to Nick what his and Daisy’s plans are, while also describing the incredible night he had the first time he had laid eyes on her. When Nick responds along the lines of “You cannot repeat the past”, Gatsby quickly challenges with “Why of course you can”. This quick but fanatical response reveals the dreamer of Gatsby and the intensity of which he cherishes the dreams he has, especially those of five years prior that he keeps until this day. This anxious longing for the past and to make things the way they were, show how much Gatsby himself needs to fulfill the dreams that he had set for himself in that moment, the Dream of Daisy, and the life he had set for the two of them, explaining that “he felt married to her, that was all”.
The green light on Daisy’s dock simultaneously shows Gatsby’s sole quality that makes “great”, in the eyes of Nick, and the quality of his that leads to his eventual downfall, not dissimilar to the downfalls of other tragic heroes like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The green light is Gatsby’s most cherished object and represents all his hopes and dreams of one day being with Daisy. Nick describes this endearing and almost childlike importance that Gatsby puts on the light by saying “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that fades year on year. Gatsby’s “fatal flaw”, however, is his remarkable naivety to the fact that his goal is unachievable. Until his last moments, he is unable to accept that his story will end any other way than the way he has planned out. He loves Daisy, and Daisy loves him, but Gatsby could never let this be enough and needs his dreams to be perfectly the way he dreamt them, explaining to Nick, “I built this all for her, and she just wants to run away and leave it all, it’s just so difficult to make her understand”.
The tragedy of Gatsby’s ending is that he never did reach that green light, despite being within a few steps of it, but the story of Gatsby is as much a story of failure as a story of hopes and dreams and the power that they can have to motivate nations. Gatsby’s green light reveals a side of ourselves that not all of us have ever even thought of tapping into, the side of us that fight for their goals and aspirations with an intensity that burns hotter than the sun. The sheer strength and commitment that Gatsby portrays in every stride he takes toward his dreams, are unstoppable forces that crush anything in their path, until they eventually reach immovable reality of death. That very capacity to dream is the sole quality that Gatsby has that allow him to be considered “great”, to be considered “The Great Gatsby”.
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