The Great Gatsby Reading Response

The 1920s or the Roaring Twenties were known for its jazz music, but the book, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on the rich people of America at the time. It starts with Nick Carraway and his life after he comes back from war. He moves to West Egg, a neighborhood in New York filled with the rich which Nick loathes, but he does become close with wealthy  Jay “Gatsby” Gatz. Here he also meets Jordan, Tom, Daisy, who is Nick’s cousin, Wilson, and Myrtle, which soon develops into multiple love triangles. Tom and Gatsby fight over Daisy, while Wilson and Tom both like Myrtle. Throughout the book, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes symbolism to express feelings, a theme, and inner thinking.

First of all, Fitzgerald uses a green light to symbolize Gatsby's love for Daisy. The green light is set on Daisy's dock which is across the water from Gatsby. He moved there  to be across from Daisy to try to win her back from Tom. Fitzgerald shows it represents Gatsby's love for Daisy when he writes, “...He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way… Involuntarily I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.” Gatsby is trying to reach the light which also shows he's trying to reach Daisy. Since, the light is on her dock, Gatsby's us trying to reach her and earn her love back. As Gatsby got closer to Daisy and starts to win her love back little by little, he gets closer to the light. The light got less bright. The light represented his goal. Also, Fitzgerald writes, “...there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the sound.” after Gatsby dies in the end. Nick notices there are no more lights after he dies. Gatsby kid of achieves his goal because Daisy says she loves him to Tom and said she's going to leave Tom. However, he didn't live long enough to stay with her. Once he died, she left with Tom and the light disappeared. The green light was not there anymore because there was not a goal to achieve. Therefore, Fitzgerald uses symbolism in the form of a green light to represents Gatsby's love for Daisy.

Second of all, Fitzgerald uses a valley of ashes to represent ugliness under the “beauty” of the wealth. The book is centered around the wealthy such as Gatsby and Tom, but Nick, the main character, is the poor guy. Early in the book, Fitzgerald writes, “About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes…” West Egg and East Egg, which is right across from it, represents the wealthy and as they drove closer to the city, it got uglier. The city can represent the poor. The valley of ashes show there is a place where the poor and the rich meet halfway. Either one are not superior or inferior. The wealthy seem on top but the new rich as shown through Tom and Daisy are very revolting because they think they’re better than everyone else. However, the valley of ashes show they are not perfect and although they seem that way, under their money and the beauty of the skin, they are not joyful and ecstatic. Since they are rich they feel like they can do anything, but they are not as gorgeous as their outer layer may seem and this is shown in the valley of ashes. This doesn’t mean the rich is horrible because Gatsby, who inherited money, is in fact very loving. The wealthy may not seem great, so it is better to not be superficial and think they are. Overall, Fitzgerald uses the valley of ashes to show under their wealth, the rich may be very hateful.

Third of all, Fitzgerald uses the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to show Wilson’s conscience through God. Wilson makes very big decisions and inferences and when he does the eyes always seem to be watching over. He says it is God looking over him, but it may be his conscience. For instance, before Wilson for finds out Myrtle died, Fitzgerald writes, “Standing behind him, Michaelis saw a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which had  just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. ‘God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson.” This occurs before he is told Gatsby killed Myrtle when it was really Daisy and he goes ahead and kills Gatsby for thinking he killed his wife. The eyes are telling Wilson something has happened to Myrtle. The eyes seem like Wilson’s conscience because it is telling him that there is something wrong. He doesn’t even know about the accident before Michaelis told him there was one. However, he knew himself the victim was probably Myrtle. The eyes appear when Wilson has an epiphany and knows it was Gatsby and Daisy in the car that hit Myrtle and the eyes emerge large. Fitzgerald uses these pair of eyes to represent Wilson’s conscience through God because he thinks the eyes are God watching him as said in the quote. He makes decision and says it’s because it is telling him to do that. For that reason, Fitzgerald uses the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to show WIlson’s inner thoughts although Nick is the narrator.

Books are very hard to write and even harder to become a top seller in addition to be written about 90 years ago. Adding symbols make the book even better but it is hard to include with trying to include all the other parts of writing a book. That being the case, the book, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a great book that expresses feelings, a theme, and a conscience through three symbols- a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, a valley of ashes between West Egg and New York, and a pair of eyes that belong to Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. The book is said to be timeless and the valley of ashes’ theme about not being superficial is a lesson that can be useful now even though the book is written in 1925.