The Green Light

I am a little ashamed to admit that I consume many great literatures as well written entertaining stories, leaving me only the sketchy outline and a vague feeling. I read The Great Gatsby in Chinese and in English, and watched the movie. The first time, the story to me was about the fancy early 20 century life style; the second time, it was about a guy’s obsess to his first love; when I watched the movie, it occur to me there is something more that I have trouble explicitly expressing. Fresh Air on NPR was talking about it the other day with a nice summary that I want to put down.

Gatsby is a dreamer who ties his dream to Daisy. He wants to achieve his self-transformation by pretending to be something he is not. He failed in the end, as he can not escape the past. But, isn’t it noble to try? To be the boat against the current, even though you know failure and death inevitably await you. The novel is about the doomed beauty of trying. Some think Gatsby’s green light backens the thrivers. However, it is not, because Gatsby dies. Fitzgerald was not trying to bring this cheer-leading spirit through Gatsby. He celebrates the efforts, but he also lets us know there is a limit to it that ultimately we all reach the dead-end.

Some say the ending of the novel is the greatest ending in American literature history:

Gatsby believed 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 … And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.