The Great Gatsby uses the color green to show the artificiality of the dream lived by Gatsby, and the motif of Gatsby’s car as Nick’s dream and how it covers the bleakness of the characters lives. Both Gatsby and Nick have a lot of ambitious hope at the start of the story. As the characters live for their dream, they start to see a little bit of the reality showing through their dreams and wonder how real their dream world is. Finally, the reality settles in and shows the characters how bland their lives really are.
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Fitzgerald then leaves the reader with two outcomes of the destroyed dream, death or acceptance of the blandness. The characters embrace the dream at the start of The Great Gatsby. Nick moved out East to fulfill his dream of leaving his past behind and starting a new successful life. Nick wanted “to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. ” (Fitzgerald 6). Nick, wanting to follow his dream about becoming rich and successful, moved out East and placed himself in the rich neighborhood of West Egg. He sees Gatsby’s car and wants that status that Gatsby has.
Gatsby, his neighbor, had pursued his dreams of a perfect life with Daisy. Gatsby “stretched out his arms toward… a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. ” (Fitzgerald 17). Gatsby was reaching for the green light that represented his dream of a perfect life with Daisy. Gatsby, unlike Nick devoted a lot more of his time and money into his dream. This devotion to his artificial dream defined Gatsby’s life. As the characters continue to pursue their dreams they began to realize that the dream might not be as good as they imagined it to be.
Once the characters start to live out their dreams they began to see that even when they achieve their dream it would not be as perfect as they envisioned it. Gatsby’s dream finally was starting to come true. He was able to get Daisy to come into his house, but this action started the destruction of his dream. Gatsby’s “count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (Fitzgerald 66) as Daisy entered into his life. Daisy, being only another human being and not the perfect person that Gatsby dreamed her to be, was imperfect. By making his dream become part of reality, Gatsby ruined the perfection of his dream.
Gatsby had “decking it [his dream] out with every bright feather that drifted his way ” (Fitzgerald 68) so much that his dream “had gone beyond her [Daisy], beyond everything” ( Fitzgerald 68). Because Gatsby had made his dream perfect, everything reality had to offer would disappoint him. Even though his date with Daisy might have gone very well, he would still be disappointed at the end of the day because reality cannot become as perfect as his dream. The reality that the world is not perfect has corrupted Gatsby’s perfect dream and will eventually destroy it.
Because reality cannot coexist with a perfect dream, Gatsby’s perfect dream got destroyed by this fact. Gatsby who dreamed that Daisy would love him just like she did in the past dream got crushed because even Daisy could not change her past feelings for Tom. When arguing with Gatsby about her feelings about Tom she says ““Oh, you want too much! ” she cried to Gatsby. “I love you now — isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past. ”” (Fitzgerald 94). Daisy, having admitted that she loved Tom, has just crushed Gatsby’s dreams of having her love him alone.
This shows Gatsby a little bit more of the reality of the situation and Gatsby hates it. He clings onto the false hope that he can still change Daisy’s mind. Even when it was obvious that Gatsby was fighting a lost cause Gatsby “Couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do. He was clutching at some last home” (Fitzgerald 114) that he could still live out his dream. Gatsby could not separate himself from his artificial dream until he knew that there was no chance that Daisy would love and live with him.
Once when he realizes that he is indeed fighting a lost cause the blandness of the world becomes apparent to him. “He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through fighting leave and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. ” (Fitzgerald 115). Gatsby gets to see reality and what the world looks like without all of the artificiality that he dreamed up. These final images that Gatsby see before dying proves that his dream and hopes for the future have truly died within him.
Fitzgerald finally uses Wilson to kill Gatsby to show that Gatsby could not live without all of the artificiality he created around himself. The destruction of Gatsby and his dream show that the artificiality cannot exist along with the reality, but only hide the reality. Unlike Gatsby Nick has not invested the majority of his life into his dream so the reality that the world is bland does not kill him. After Nick’s role model Gatsby dies, Nick realizes that his dream has not come true so Nick just accepts the truth that the world is bland and moves on.
When Gatsby car crashed into Myrtle and the “auto hit her. Ins’antly killed” (Fitzgerald 138) Nicks dream of becoming rich and successful just like Gatsby died with her. The crashing of the car into Myrtle was very important because it was not only the beginning of the end for Gatsby but also the event that killed Nick’s dream because the reality that Gatsby was not perfect and that his wealthy life would not make his life perfect. With this knowledge Nick evaluated his life out east. When this revaluation Nick saw that his life out east has been a failure and his dream has been crushed.
He had broke up with Jordon, realizing he was not making any more money as a bonds man, and losing his one and only friend realizes that his dream was just artificial and was not going to happen. The east coast city has lost its magic and now “after Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me [Nick]” (Fitzgerald 124). The city had lost its promising artificial side, and now was what it has always has been just a place where a bunch of people live. Nick decides to leave behind this “haunted” city and leave for back West where he uses to live. F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby uses the color green to show the artificiality of the dream lived by Gatsby, and the motif of Gatsby’s car as Nick’s dream and how it covers the bleakness of the characters lives. Gatsby’s car was the perfect representation of Nick’s dream. At first this car was really attractive and Nick wanted it. As the story when on Nick got to ride in the car and found out that the car was not as special as it really was. When the car crashed Nick realized that his dream was not going to happen and saw how bleak the city really is.
Nick accepted this fact and then decided to move back to his former life. The green light that was Gatsby’s dream was very attractive at first when it was across the bay but when Gatsby’s dream was coming true he saw the reality that the world would not allow his perfect dream to become true. When Daisy chooses Tom over Gatsby, Gatsby’s dream was destroyed. Daisy’s rejection of Gatsby made him realize that the world was truly a bland, lonely place without the artificiality. This fact did not just kill Gatsby’s dream about the perfect life with Daisy but also killed his whole desire to live.
