Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

In life everyone strives to get rich, but is having an abundance of money always good? Sometimes people use money for personal benefits, sometimes it's for the benefit of others, but at times people with money use it to create their social status. In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the idea of wealth is seen throughout. Jay Gatsby, who lives next door to Nick Carraway; the Narrator of the story, wants to be with his dream girl Daisy. Gatsby is wealthy and throws parties to impress Daisy. Daisy however, is married to another man Tom Buchanan. Throughout the story the people with money use it to create their social status. In The Great Gatsby F.Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism to convey, wealth causes people to assert

The book The Great Gatsby is written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it’s a narrative told from the perspective of Nick Carraway. He tells the story of the tragic life of Jay Gatsby and talks about the society of the wealthy people with high social status. He talks about the conflict between the two huge power Tom and Gatsby, due to their similarity in their money and social status, while they compete for dominance and masculinity by fighting over Daisy. Through Nick’s narration and his close relationship with Gatsby, the readers realize that the motive behind everything that Gatsby does is to win back Daisy’s heart to repeat the past, the first time when he fell in love with Daisy.

People in America love to have a great deal of money. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby always wants to have money, and he finally gets it. Gatsby has parties to try to get Daisy to come to his house. Gatsby tell Nick to tell Daisy to come to Nick’s house without her husband. Gatsby finallys shows his big house off to Daisy and thinks he will win her love back again just because he has money. Gatsby’s plan do not work out. Fitzgerald uses symbols in The Great Gatsby to show how things are going wrong in America.

The Great Gatsby is a symbol itself. The Great Gatsby was written to represent the rise and fall of the American Dream. The author places the rich and wealthy lifestyle on a high pedestal while he shows the dramatic consequences of moral and social decay amongst the characters. As each turning point is revealed, the American Dream slowly crumbles in the selfish hands of those who remain ignorant to anything else in the world. The significance of the many symbolic elements in The Great Gatsby plays a role in revealing the underlying themes of the American Dream, the ongoing clash between love and wealth and social and moral destruction.

Gatsby is not misleading, and cares and hopes for the best to every one of the characters he meets. Gatsby progressed in a multitude of ways, such as how he talked and thought of certain people such as Daisy. The way F. Scott Fitzgerald described Gatsby as a character and how he progressed Gatsby couldn't be more fitting as a caring and more respectful kind of guy. How Gatsby relates to society is that he threw parties and how a lot of rich people went to his parties. He may even be able to challenge societal norms because of how he brought himself up to be a kind of character who looks like a rich guy who is just like everyone else, normal, but really he had so much inside of him that Nick Carraway(friend and Narrator) can for some reason only see. Through this journey, some may feel that Fitzgerald wanted to that there is always some sort of light around, maybe you will have to look hard for it but there will always be light, in Gatsby’s case, there was a green light, and how he looked at the light made it seem as it was his hope, but not for loss. As Gatsby says "single green light" and how it was "unattainable dream," the "dream [that] must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it”. This is one of Gatsby’s quotes that he used with a reference to the green light.

Thinking about the past almost always affect present happiness. Perhaps the wrong memories, and sometimes the right memories with someone have negative effects. Many people experience overthinking. This requires someone to sit around and think about something in their life until they begin to over exaggerate the situation. Coming up with every negative outcome that they can acquire. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Great Gatsby, there is almost an opposite thinking coming from the main character, the wealthy Jay Gatsby believes that he should find comfort in the past and hope for it to positively affect the present. Through the text Gatsby is taught using symbolism, that it is foolish to attempt to recover the past because it is impossible for it to lead to present happiness.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Gatsby with a great deal of symbolism and for good reason. Symbolism in writing adds more meaning and depth to a story and helps the reader think about underlying themes. It can show what is really going on under the surface of the plot. Several issues exemplified through The Great Gatsby were that wealth and power corrupt, people aren’t what they seem, you can’t go back to the past, actions have consequences, and that the idealistic American dream has been replaced by materialism and greed.

“The Great Gatsby” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald takes place during the roaring 20’s, an especially great time for the wealthy. Symbolism is used thoroughly throughout the book to allow us to see how differently people see things and how we are affected by certain things that are out of our control. The color green is used to make us aware of money, wealth, even the future such as the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Here it symbolizes the future that Gatsby hopes to resume with Daisy. The Valley of Ashes symbolizes the desperation of the lower class, and the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg, the eyes of “God”, symbolizes the fact that there is someone watching and judging all that happens. It was a very desperate time.

A symbol can be anything that represents something else in a story or something that has a deep effect on the story. Symbols can be an object, a character, an animal, a color, etc. Being a great writer, Fitzgerald has used symbols in a very effective manner. In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has been in love with Daisy for a quite long time. While he was at the war, she marries a rude yet a rich guy named Tom Buchanan. Desiring to win her back, Gatsby transmutes himself into a wealthy person. He conducts parties every weekend hoping to see her there. Finally, when she meets him, everything turns out badly. Fitzgerald, in this novel uses various symbols to make it more fascinating and these symbols mainly represents the life in America in the 1920’s and the American dream.

Another symbol used in The Great Gatsby is the Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes is located between West Egg and New York City, and all it is, is land with the dumping of industrial ashes all over it. It represents the moral and social decay that results from wealth, as the rich enjoy nothing but their own pleasure. It also symbolizes the poor who live among the dirty ashes and lose their strength as a result. “This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic farm where ashes grown like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powder air.”(27) Looking over the valley of ashes are the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. “The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic…they look out of no face, but instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles.”(27) The Eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg could represent God staring down on the American society. They’re just a pair of fading eyes painted on an old billboard over the valley of ashes. Fitzgerald uses the eyes to suggest symbols only mean something because of the characters put meaning in them. George Wilson makes the connection of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes symbolizing God. They could also represent the meaninglessness of the

"My family is my strength and my weakness", Aishwarya Rai Bachchan says this because family is a huge part of life and it can always be difficult, but can also be wonderful at times. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a short story wonderfully written by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the complicated life of an "old kid" named Benjamin Button. Benjamin dealt with a lot of hardships throughout his tough life mainly because he had an extremely rare situation where he aged backward. Benjamin's family was very tough on him because he was not a normal case but at the end they always stuck with him. Through the use of symbolism, characterization, and irony, the author establishes the theme of family is always the number one priority no matter what the circumstances are.

One such example of symbolism is the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg on the billboard in the valley of ashes. Fitzgerald states, “The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic- their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose” (Fitzgerald 23). The eyes give the reader the impression of omnipotence. While the spectacles seem to clarify any hazy details the wearer may have missed without them. Later in the story, these eyes symbolize God watching and the characters action when Mr. Wilson is talking to Michaelis. George Wilson tells Michaelis:

The Hidden Details Of The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald uses symbols such as expressions to hide important facts from the reader. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock represents Gatsby’s hope and dreams. It represents the physical and emotional distance between him and Daisy. It also stands for the past and present in the life of Gatsby and Daisy. Therefore in this case the green light represents so many things that you can’t wouldn’t even realize when you begin reading the book, same applies to the other hidden details (Fitzgerald Chapter 4) .

According to the article, “When “The Great Gatsby” was first published in 1925, income and wealth disparities were at record levels” (Frank). The time period relates to ideals of life in America because the economy was rising and was in good shape at the time, so there were differences between social classes. Since the parties held were extravagant, and the wealthy lived luxuriously, people had the impression that the ideals of life in America involved wealth and a socialite life. Characters like Gatsby and Myrtle are evidence that people had the ideals of the American lifestyle so engraved in their minds that they were willing to do anything to live the lifestyle at the time. Time also relates to the ideals because the rising economy and the materialism of the 20’s were what people envisioned made it possible to have the perfect American life.

Happiness can only truly be acquired through the fantastical idea of dreams, and it is well known that money cannot. But in the 1920s, this idea changed as it became into a desire for wealth by whatever means; mistaken that money will bring happiness in one’s life. This conception leads to the end of true morality and turned a person into someone very selfish. F.Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates this notion through the use of a variety of symbols and themes.One of the dominant ideas within this novel is wealth which is supported through the symbol: eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.The eyes symbolize the loss of spiritual values and growing commercialism in America. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the theme wealth creates a pathway to the corruption of morals is evident through the decisions and thoughts of the Buchanans and Gatsby who are indirectly influenced by the symbol Eye of T.J Eckleburg.