The Great Gatsby Essay Example

No matter how hard you work for it, opportunities you did not take in the past will always stay there and there is no getting it back. This is the idea that author F. Scott Fitzgerald tries to convey through his book The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby fell in love with a woman named Daisy before he went off to war but she could not wait for him to come home. She was of age to get married so she found a man with money and married him instead of waiting for Gatsby. After returning home, Gatsby spends the rest of his life working to rekindle the love between them. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses symbols such as weather, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleberg, and the green light to foreshadow, further the plot, reveal things about characters, and help convey the theme. 

The first symbol that Fitzgerald uses to convey the theme is the weather. When Gatsby meets with Daisy for the first time in five years it is pouring rain outside. Rain is seen as a depressing or nervous kind of weather, so it helps to convey the idea that Gatsby is incredibly nervous about meeting up with Daisy once again. The rain also helps to provide an addition to the plotline. After Daisy arrives, Gatsby realizes that he does not want to seem like he was waiting for her, so Gatsby decides to sneak out the back door and walk his way upfront. Gatsby was described as being, “pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, [and] standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into [Nick’] eyes(Fitzgerald, 92).” The rain made Gatsby seem more pathetic in this event and also added a funny scenario into the plotline. This also further supports the theme because Gatsby was trying extremely hard to impress Daisy but it did not matter. The rain got in the way and he was not able to awe her in the slightest, instead, it made him seem less remarkable and more pitiful. On the other hand, Fitzgerald uses the sun to show the light or connection between Daisy and Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes, “It’s stopped raining.[said Gatsby]’ ‘I’m glad, Jay.’[Daisy replied]  Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy(Fitzgerald 96).” The joy that Daisy is feeling is not only found within her but in all of the characters present. As soon as the sun comes out, Daisy and Gatsby open up and begin to talk to one another instead of staring at each other in awkward silence. This newfound comfort between them gives Gatsby the courage and confidence to invite Daisy over to his house where she eventually realizes that had she waited for Gatsby, then she could have had both love and money. The sun revealed that Daisy still had some feelings for Gatsby. The sun also revealed that even Daisy had regrets about the past and is another character that the theme applies to. 

Additionally, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg as a symbol in The Great Gatsby. It is even confirmed in the book about what it symbolizes. Towards the end of the novel, while he is staring at the eyes, Wilson says, “God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me but you can’t fool God!... God sees everything(Fitzgerald, 170).” Thus, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg are meant to symbolize the eyes of God. Not only do they convey the idea that God is always watching, but they also provide foreshadowing in the novel. Before something bad happens, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg are mentioned. For example, when Wilson acknowledges that the eyes are God's is right before he heads off to find who killed his wife. Tom eventually tells him that it was Gatsby’s car that killed Myrtle and Wilson sets out to go and kill Gatsby. Another time where the eyes foreshadow a disaster is when they are first introduced, and when Nick meets Myrtle for the first time. They are described as “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, 26).”  At first, they seem like an unimportant detail but it foreshadows the first thing to go wrong. Tom Buchanan tells Myrtle to meet him in the city where they go to their secret apartment. Here is where Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose. The eyes foreshadow yet again when Myrtle sees that Tom is driving the yellow car. This event not only foreshadows but also helps to move the story forward. When describing the journey in Gatsby’s car, Nick states,  “Over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept their vigil but I perceived, after a moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity from less than twenty feet away(Fitzgerald, 132).”  The eyes that Nick mentions are those of Myrtle’s through her window. Wilson had locked her in her room when he found out she was with another man, and she was looking for a way out. When she sees Tom driving the car into the city, she knows to look for that car when he comes back. So when Gatsby takes his own car back home and he passes Wilson’s garage, Myrtle runs towards the car and gets hit. The eyes foreshadowed this happening as Myrtle was mentioned in the same sentence as them. The event also helped to enhance the theme because past mistakes are what killed Myrtle. In order to try to fix them, she ran towards the car which led to her death instead of her success. 

The last major symbol that Fitzgerald uses in The Great Gatsby is the green light on the Buchanan’s dock. This light symbolizes Gatsby’s love for Daisy. The first time it is introduced is when Nick notices Gatsby reaching across the bay for it. He describes what he sees by saying, “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(Fitzgerald, 24).” While Nick does not know it at the time, Gatsby is reaching out for Daisy. He is just across the bay from her and the only thing separating them is water, but the only thing that he can do is hope that one day he will be able to meet with her again. This light is a direct symbol to the theme as it is a physical object that resonates with Gatsby as being the love between him and Daisy. They once had love but they lost it, now Gatsby is reaching out towards the light and trying to get her back. But he falls just short. Furthermore, as Nick wraps up the story he connects the green light directly and declares, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...(Fitzgerald, 193).” Nick is saying that the green light represents both the past and the future. That every year the future begins to get shorter and shorter, and you can not spend this time dwindling on the past. If you try and use this time to reclaim what you already lost, you will not be able to get it again, instead, you will have just lost time that you could have spent on bettering your future. 

Through the use of symbols such as weather, the eyes of Eckleberg, and the green light, Fitzgerald enhances the storyline, adds to the emotion of characters, and most importantly, contributes to the theme of the novel. Each symbol had its own ways of contributing to the story. The rain and sun put the emotions of the characters into a physical object, the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg foreshadows the many unfortunate events, and the green light is the closest thing Gatsby had to Daisy. But the one thing they all have in common is that F. Scott Fitzgerald uses them and the events that follow to help convey the message that trying to reclaim the past will only hold you back, you need to focus on the present and the future.