Believed In The Green Light
I was reminded of the well-known saying by Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities :”It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Times changes so fast that people are always chasing its steps, with its great deep shadow cast on them. And Fitzgerald was once one of them, following the trace of his times, and recording every step of his long journey. So, there is The Great Gatsby, the book I am going to talk about.
In 1920s, the America, air was filled with jolly jazz music and the fascinating flavor of alcohol. Fortuitously our protagonist, an ordinary office worker Nick got acquainted with his neighbor Gatsby, a millionaire who owned a huge castle and enormous fortune. He surprisingly found that the only baffle in Gatsby’s heart was the green light right on the other side of the river, behind which stood a mansion, where lived his beloved Daisy, Nick’s younger cousin. He was so obsessed with the green light that he took the risk, dreaming that he could go back to those beautiful days. However, time broke his fantasy. Eventually the truth came out that the woman he was infatuated with choose to made him the scapegoat for a couple of accidents . Gatsby died, his love gone. He became a great tragedy of his time.
I was quite heart-broken when I first finished reading this novel. Ending up with the rueful ending, mixed feelings crowded in my mind. He was a good man, handsome, rich, clever and elegant, clinging to the pure love inside his heart, which exactly brought about all the disaster. His tragedy was like fireworks blown in the night sky, illuminating the somber time. The flash was transitory, and the disillusionment is eternal. What a pity.
We could say that Daisy is to blame for Gatsby’s death. Her selfishness, deceit and money worship averted the tragedy. But I do believed that they loved each other - maybe from the beginning to the end. However, even in love Gatsby appeared so avaricious that he forced Daisy to say that she never fell in love with Tom. That was against her will. She felt pressured and thus chose to evade. And when the accident happened, she could do nothing but escape. Gatsby was beaten by his obsession. His green light was shut down by himself.
The book is trying to get the readers to know that all the things we feel regretful for live in the shadow of the times. We can see descriptions of luxurious life everywhere in the story. At that time people of the upper class addicted themselves to such a world constructed by money and lust. Gatsby’s persistence on pure love was a dramatic contrast. On one hand he spent money without stint in order to catch Daisy’s attention; on the other hand, he tried hard to won Daisy’s love with his true heart. Yet he is no longer the boy five years ago. All the lies he made stem simply from his inferiority complex of his humble birth.
Everyone could have diverse view of the time he or she lives in, When it comes to literary, classical literary works always have a mission of recording the times. What Fitzgerald managed to show us in The Great Gatsby is about the times. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. The green light lead him to his beloved, and lead people of the same time to put aside the desire for material, looking for the primeval beginning of their lives.
I love the last sentence which has become the author’s epitaph, for it perfectly concludes Gatsby’s life: ”So we beat on, boats against the current, brone back ceaselessly into the past.” I think that was the reason why Gatsby lived, as well as a great many people fight for living.
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