Green Light and American Dream
25-26: “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, that might have been the end of a dock.”
97- dream = daisy
98 – “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.”
“Daisy put her arm through his abruptly but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. . . Now it was again a green light on a dock.”
142—“so he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away”
156-157 Daisy’s allure “following of a grail” “Daisy gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor”
160 “he stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment . . .”
162 “They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted, across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” I’ve always been glad I said that . . .
169: “I have an idea that Gatsby himself didn’t believe it would come and perhaps he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream . . .”
189 “Gatsby believed in the green light . . .so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”