When Brands Are All We Have Left
Dream and delusion in the symbolic world of Jay Gatsby
I originally wrote this as part of an application. What follows is a condensed version of that submission. I doubt it will get me the position—but the argument felt worth sharing anyway.
Any analysis of metaphor begins with a problem of context.
A fisherman’s “catch” and an outfielder’s “catch” share a verb but diverge entirely in meaning; the definition is determined, or at least “informed,” by the prior understanding of the observer.
Fitzgerald acknowledges this immediately through Nick Carraway, who recounts his father’s advice not to judge others too quickly. The principle quietly prepares the reader for a story populated by individuals who may seem irrational or contrary to common sense. Instead, we are encouraged to recognize that they are acting within the limits of their own material and psychological realities.
In The Great Gatsby, the most potent metaphors—the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg and the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock—function not as static symbols, but as contested signs whose meanings shift depending on who is looking.
The green light is the most obvious metaphor, yet arguably the most tragic given Gatsby’s character. By 1925, traffic lights had become commonplace in American cities, with the first installed in Detroit in 1920. In this context, a green light is a literal command: “Go.” The interpretation is obvious, but it perfectly establishes Gatsby as a Quixotic romantic. His tragedy lies in his belief that the rules of the physical world apply to the realm of time and memory. He assumes that just as he can signal a car to move forward, he can signal history to reverse.
Gatsby’s romance is fueled by a childhood infatuation so consuming that he transforms himself into something “better”—elevated, refined, and distinct. Yet, the man “Gatsby” is a fiction, no more inherently real than “Pepsi” or “Coke.” At their core, they are both cola; their competition is a battle for dominance in the buyer’s imagination.
Gatsby attempts to steal Daisy’s imagination with the fiction of “Jay Gatsby,” believing his new money can outbid the old money of Tom Buchanan. He fails to grasp that the distinction between “new” and “old” money is a cultural code far more rigid than his wealth can breach.
Gatsby stares across the lake, imagining that changing history is as simple as changing his story. He believes he can manipulate the world, driving it like a vehicle to his desired destination. He is a “boat against the current,” fighting the forward progression of time where past actions build upon one another. Here, the Quixotic delusion overtakes the romanticism. What he wants is impossible because the Daisy he seeks—the one who would have chosen the fiction of “Jay Gatsby”—no longer exists.
The woman across the bay is a married mother of a small child who has, reluctantly and in accordance with her class, carried on with her life. Even when Gatsby briefly holds her in the present, he does not possess her in reality; their reunion exists only in their shared imagination. She was always Tom’s wife, and it is fitting that the novel’s climax unfolds beneath the gaze of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.
The billboard stands in the Valley of Ashes, a stretch of industrial ruin between West Egg and New York. Its presence in a wasteland implies a once-vitalized entity, of which Eckleburg is now a relic.
Yet, the eyes remain present, the gaze of the past bearing down on the present as an indifferent witness. These eyes see the car strike Tom’s mistress, Myrtle, but they also witnessed Tom’s adultery. They watch as Tom visits the mourning widower, Wilson, and implicates Gatsby in the death.
This is the novel’s great irony: for all Gatsby’s manipulations, his reinventions, and his sleight of hand, Tom need only point a grieving man—who he has cuckolded blatantly and unabashedly—in Gatsby’s direction to end his life.
We, the readers, are meant to adopt the position of Eckleburg. We are placed in a position where we can do little else but watch. We are witnesses without agency.
At least the eyes of Eckleburg implied a signpost, an exit. But the vehicles in the novel—the characters hurtling toward their destruction—do not even know we are there.