A Literary

Analysis of The
Great Gatsby
By Juan Gonzales
Love in The Great Gatsby
I chose this topic in the The Great Gatsby because Love has a big impact on the
characters, especially Gatsby. Love is supposed to bring joy and happiness, but
there are many things in The Great Gatsby that is very different from this.
 ● “He stretched out his arms toward the dark
water in a curious way.” Gatsby had his arms
out toward the light as if he was trying to get to
it (Daisy).
● In the end of chapter 1, it stated, “ Involuntarily

Green Light I glanced seaward-and distinguished nothing

except a single green light, minute and far
away, that might have been the end of a dock.”

This green light is across the dock from where

Gatsby lives, and it is at Daisy and Tom's home.
Gatsby wants to be with her, but as stated the light
is at the other side of the dock. I believe this
means that Gatsby can never reach the green
light, meaning that getting to Daisy, in other words
his true love, will never be possible.
 ● 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

Green Light her.” Chapter 5, pg 93

● This evidence is showing that the green light,

which was his hopes of getting at daisy, was no
longer there. Gatsby and Daisy were almost
touching each other, this shows that no matter
how close they are to each other, or no matter
what they do, they wont have true love.
 “On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus,
bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the
morning and long past midnight.”/ “ Sometimes they came
and went without having ,met Gatsby at all.” Ch.3 pg 40

Huge Parties “I think he half expected her to wander into one of his
parties, some night,” went on Jordan, “but she never did.
Then he began asking people casually if they knew her,
and I was the first one he found.” Ch.4 pg 79
 “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.” p.180

What I believe this sentence is trying to say is that no

matter how hard you try to go to your past, in this case
Gatsby was trying to go back to how his relationship was
with Daisy, it will never get anywhere.

The Past
“The quiet lights in the houses were humming out into the
darkness and there was a stir and bustle among the stars.”
Ch6 pg 110

This statement shows that even though Daisy and Gatsby

were in this really romantic setting with hummings and the
bright moon, the darkness signifies that their relationship at
the time looked very good, but deep down it was not. The
darkness was basically showing where relationship was
going, which was into nothing.
 To me, Rain in The Great Gatsby symbolizes
sadness and hopeless. It also shows that
things are coming to an end. During Gatsby's
funeral, it was a very rainy day.

● “The minister glanced several times at his

watch, so I took him aside and asked him to
wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use.
Nobody came” p.174
Rain ● This choice is showing that Gatsby, who had
huge parties and a lot of power, had nothing in
the end. He never had anyone that truly loved
him. He had parties and money, but no one
cared about him in the end.
 “I’m going to drain the pool to-day, Mr. Gatsby. Leaves’ll
start falling pretty soon, and then there’s always trouble
with the pipes.”

This is saying that leaves will start to fall down, this means
that everything is going to die out and be gone. This shows

Fall that something bad will probably happen later on. This
connects to the topic love because it shows that everything
eventually dies out.
Theme

A theme that arose in The Great Gatsby is

that you can never reach true love.
A Final Word...
A thing that I would tell next years juniors about why read The Great
Gatsby is that the novel has a lot of meanings and symbols behind it. If you
read it and annotate it, it can better help you understand the meaning not
just in this book, but any book you read. This improved my reading and
thinking skills because when reading The Great Gatsby, it helped us analyze
how the author's choices impacted the meaning a reading.