Essay --

Light vs Dark love: Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, relationships developed and the inevitable happened. Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby rekindled their love, or so it seemed. Daisy Buchanan has an unmistakable elusive quality about herself. Fitzgerald correlates Daisy with the sun because of this quality. Fitzgerald also correlates Gatsby with darkness. Darkness can not survive where there is light, therefore Daisy’s and Gatsby’s love can not survive. Within the first three chapters of the novel Fitzgerald prepares the reader for the rest of the book by foreshadowing. One of the most memorable foreshadows in the beginning was when Daisy snapped out the candle after hearing Gatsby’s name mentioned by Miss Baker. This is an important part in the book because â€Å"Fitzgerald associates Daisy’s affections for Gatsby with sunlight.† (Sutton) The snapping out of the light foreshadows that Daisy’s affections for Gatsby have disappeared just as the light from the candle has. Due to the fact that Gatsby is correlated with darkness, he attempts to attract Daisy through a dazzling display of artificial light. When he throws his huge extravagant parties, his attempts show. Nick explains one of Gatsby’s parties by saying there were â€Å"enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden.† (Fitzgerald 40) But, â€Å"No matter how brightly his lights shine, he can not halt the passage of time as embodied in the changing of seasons.† (Sutton) By the changing of seasons, from autumn to fall, mostly all light will cease to exist, so will Daisy’s love for Gatsby. Another attempt Gatsby tries to attract Daisy’s attention is in chapter five. The lights coming from Gatsby’s house were ... ...ut the light.† (Fitzgerald 147) That was a very important part in the plot due to the fact that her love for Gatsby is symbolized by light. Once she turned off the light, it made it clear that she no longer has feelings for him. Nor will she ever. Even more proof to show that they were not in love is when Tom goes to kill Gatsby. He succeeded. Nobody ever found out that Tom killed Gatsby. Daisy and Tom continued to live their life. Fitzgerald never stated if Daisy struggled with the fact that she practically killed two people. Only can assume that she did not even care. Overall, Daisy’s and Gatsby’s love was doomed from the start. Fitzgerald associates Daisy’s love for Gatsby with sunlight. From the start, Daisy had been putting out that sunlight. Fitzgerald also made it clear that their love would not survive when he choose to place the novel’s setting in autumn.