Text Connections (Text-to-Itself)

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the main protagonist Jay Gatsby is surrounded by an air of mystery drawing the rest of the characters into his spiraling life. Persevering to reach his goal of attaining riches even through illegal means, Gatsby chooses to do all he can to win back the love of his life, Daisy. At the very end of the novel, the narrator, Nick, remembers a particular moment as he “thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock” (Fitzgerald 180). Remembering the first sighting of Gatsby reaching out towards the green light, Nick now realizes that it was as if he was reaching out to Daisy. He genuinely believed that Gatsby’s “dream must have seemed to close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (Fitzgerald 180). A text-to-itself connection can be made through this realization of Gatsby’s dream, because the green light exists throughout the novel as a symbol. The green light can be assumed as a symbol of Daisy, and Gatsby’s undying love for her as he reaches out into the distance trying to reach her. Also, Nick mentions Gatsby stretching “out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way” as he was “trembling” (Fitzgerald 20-21). As he was still reaching out towards the green light or towards Daisy,  Gatsby did not realize that his dream “was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of republic rolled into one night” (Fitzgerald 180). This imagery describes that his dream was already gone, which can be interpreted as Daisy running away when the death of Gatsby streamed the news. She literally was in the “vast obscurity beyond the city” where she could not be found at all thus showing that she did not want to have anything to do with Gatsby.