Theme Of Water In The Great Gatsby

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While the novel The Great Gatsby portrays George Wilson as the killer of Jay Gatsby, his pursual of the American dream actually killed Gatsby. Gatsby started at the very bottom of society, and ended up at the very top, changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby in the process. He built a life for himself on hopes and dreams in the society of the 20’s, but lost his life all the same to its hidden greed. Throughout the novel, the motif of water surrounds Gatsby, defining the crucial moments of his life. In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the motif of water to represent how the society of 1920s America offered new beginnings, as well as tragic endings. Water surrounds Gatsby’s birth on the waters of Lake Superior because …show more content…
The first significant place water turns up since Gatsby’s birth is at a death, the death of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. Gatsby, just back from the war and prepared to rekindle his past relationship with Daisy, decides to send her a letter on the day of her wedding to Tom Buchanan. When Daisy receives the letter, she is distraught, screaming and crying that she has changed her mind about the marriage. Jordan tries to console her, putting her into the bath, but she wouldn’t let go of the letter, “She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow” (76). Daisy dissolves the letter from Gatsby in the water, ending their relationship; It is important that she destroys it this way because it foreshadows the truth that Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship could never be what it once was again. In this moment, Fitzgerald uses the motif of water to demonstrate the death of Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, demonstrating the power that the society of the 1920s had to destroy. Also connected to the bath scene is a new beginning, the marriage of Tom and Daisy. The day after their marriage, Daisy and Tom set off on their honeymoon, “a three months’ trip to the South Seas” (76). Just after ending her relationship with Gatsby, Daisy started a new one
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