. The abruptness with which “suddenly he looked at his watch, jumped up, and hurried from the room…” (Fitzgerald 70) implies that his business is very important. Further more, we observe that his job is not only essential, but also probably illegal, since he rarely, if not never, talks about it, and when asked he coldly replies, “that’s my affair..
.”(Fitzgerald 87). Meyer Wolfshiem’s evasive response to Gatsby’s sudden departure suggests that he is aware of Gatsby’s affair and he is probably helping him. He simply says, “He has to telephone,” (Fitzgerald 70) with no other clue to the person, place or reason Gatsby “had” to telephone. Although Daisy becomes more important to Gatsby than his job, he is not able to completely ignore the telephone that comes while she is admiring his house. He tries to brush it off saying “I can’t talk now…
” but when informed of a problem, he can’t help but to resolve it: “I said a small town…He must know what a small town is…Well he’s no use to us if Detroit is his idea of a small town..
.”(Fitzgerald 91). It is obvious from the one sided conversation heard that there was a problem and that Gatsby, acting as the leader, was frustrated. However, Daisy was more important and for that reason, “he rang off.” As seen before, the telephone is a very important symbol in the novel. However, it symbolizes two different things in two different circumstances. For the Buchanans, it is a sign that their marriage is collapsing, while for Gatsby, it represents hope for money and power that will eventually lead Daisy into his arms again. Another thing that is of undoubted importance in describing Gatsby’s character is the green light.
From the very first chapter, we are introduced to a crumb of Gatsby’s great secret desire. The first time he is described, he is portrayed as stretching “out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way..
.he was trembling.” (Fitzgerald 25) At first sight, the object of his admiration seemed, to an ordinary man, merely a “single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of o dock.” But for Gatsby, the light was his only dream, only hope, only real thing in a life full of illusions. When he encounters Daisy again, he explains the significance of her dock’s green light: “If it wasn’t for the mist, we could see the your home across the bay..
..You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.”(Fitzgerald 90) The house was not for him, the green light was not just that. It was all for her, to be close to her, to know that he could reach out his arms and almost grab her. In the end, the narrator, portrayed as Nick Carraway uncovers the mystery of the green light for those who did not understand it solely by reading Gatsby’s words. For Gatsby, that green light symbolized the unattainable, the dream, the fairy tale, and the one thing that was so close, and yet so far.
But with Daisy being so near to him once more, holding her hand in his like old times and feeling his heart pulsating, “his count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.” (Fitzgerald 90) The green light is simple, small, yet filled with meaning, hope and dreams. It represents the light of Gatsby’s life, the goal that he is striving for, his one and only dream, for which he worked all his life, to which he dedicated every second of the hour.
The green light is symbol for desire and at the same time, it is hope that the dream will come true. There are other numerous symbols throughout the novel. Unlike the green light, which symbolized the unattainable dream, they represent the steps and things Gatsby had to acquire in order for the dream to come true. All his valuable possessions are in fact ways to impress Daisy and to prove to her that he has changed and that he can offer her so much more now than he could when he was a mere soldier in the army. The house, the shirts, the library books are all proof that he is a changed man. But Daisy can see right through them.
She knows that he wasn’t born rich and she knows that those are only things gathered along the years. Gatsby however is so deep in the thought that he finally got Daisy back, that he fails to realize that even though she is impressed, she could never accept him, as “rich girls don’t marry poor boys”(Fitzgerald ). He is amazed with his accomplishment over the years and does not know what to do next to surprise Daisy: “My house looks well, doesn’t it…See how the whole front of it catches the
