However, his single focus on getting Daisy's green light, something he cannot have, creates a motive of greed in Gatsby that he is unable to control and eventually destroys him. For example, Nick talks of Gatsby's idealization of Daisy by saying:
"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion." (Fitzgerald, p. 101).
Even Gatsby himself recognizes this fatal flaw, namely that following his first kiss with Daisy that he "forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God." (Fitzgerald, p. 117).
This comparison to God is also symbolic of the American Dream. America was founded on the belief that this was a country that would act as God by setting moral examples to the rest of the world, like a beacon on a hill. This beacon on the hill was the American Dream. Interestingly, the green light across the dock in the novel represents the American Dream and, like the notion of being God, is utterly unobtainable and will lead one to their demise as they try.
Gatsby never realized the...
Great Gatsby the old rich and the new rich. The power play between these two sectors at the East Egg and the West Egg is one of the most immediate themes of the novel. The old rich or traditional aristocracy is represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and Jordan Baker who behave with ingrained grace, simple taste, subtlety and elegance. They are suspicious about, and discriminating against, the new
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The second half, entitled "Airborne Toxic Event, however, serves the role of criticizing the reality of American society and the result of its obsession with consumerism. In the second half, a chemical spill releases a mysterious airborne toxic event over Jack's home area, requiring everyone to evacuate. This event forces Jack to confront his own mortality and society's general fear of death and how it attempts to prevent death
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