Green Light in the Great Gatsby After the events of this story have unfolded, the narrator Nick, focuses on the man most like himself; Gatsby. Both Nick Carraway and Jay Gatz hail from the mid-west,where morals and the right way of getting ahead are instilled into them. They travel toNew York, where the morals are paper-thin and everything seems turned upside down. The saps with morals stay in the ashheaps while the careless, foolhardy upper society dowhat they please. Nick stays true to the mid-west morals of an earnest, hardworkingliving while Gatsby tries to be just like the others on East Egg. Nick says this of him,“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 armsfurther.....And one fine morning-” (189). A central theme of the novel I think, is the ideathat people aren’t satisfied with what they have, they are always going further and further,never knowing when to stop, and always striving for that bright star that “seemed so closethat he could hardly fail to grasp it.” (189). To Gatsby the green light symbolizes Daisy, Daisy in a way represents her peers inthe same social strata as her. Daisy is a fool, living vicariously and so are the characters inthis book. The green light represents the wild and recklessness of the times. These weretimes when women for the first time were drinking and smoking alongside the guys, theirwar was over and so were their troubles. The green light for them means go, after mostwars the economy experiences a boom, this was no different. They are cocksure, thinkingthat whatever they do is right, and they always push on. They don’t care what happens toothers as long as they remain untouched and unrivaled. This selfishness is shown in nearly all characters except Nick, who accepts his lifeand is satisfied. He works har...
