What Does The Grass Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

It’s the Climb
“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” You can see this in The Great Gatsby because George Wilson wanted to move West for a better life and Nick Carraway wanted to move East for a better life. This is great evidence that people are almost always working towards some goal instead of appreciating what they have. Most characters in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are working towards a goal that will not make them happy.
Firstly, Gatsby was not happy with his life because he wanted Daisy. Gatsby constantly “sought to recreate the past by marrying Daisy, but with his new, wealthy persona intact” (Wyly 76). Years ago, when he had wanted to marry Daisy, he was too poor. Now, because he had gained money with the …show more content…
Myrtle had been talking about moving West, or, rather, complaining about their financial state, to George for years. George said, “‘I’ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go West’” (Fitzgerald 123). George and Myrtle wanted to move West so they could get better jobs and escape their poverty. Their poverty was not their only problem, though: “Everywhere, at all levels of society prevail the same sterility, the same failure of love, the same empty relationships, whether it be...Myrtle and Wilson, Tom and Daisy, Nick and Jordan, or even Gatsby and Daisy” (Audhuy 114). Myrtle and Wilson did not love each other anymore, so Myrtle secretly started looking for someone …show more content…
When Nick came over, Daisy had wanted to do something with him, but she couldn’t think of anything that people do to make them happy: “‘All right,’ said Daisy. ‘What’ll we plan?’ She turned to me helplessly: ‘What do people plan?’” (Fitzgerald 11). Daisy could not think of anything to do because she had reached all of society’s standards, and didn’t know where to go from there. Nick had already known about Daisy’s lack of purpose because he said, “Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together” (Fitzgerald 17). They had no objectives at all, just to live and have fun, so they traveled country to country as if a certain place might bring them happiness one day. Nick had first admired their wealth because he was thinking of the societal standard, “Nick is half-dazzled by their wealth, and yet knows that their lives are pervaded by an atmosphere of rootlessness and futility” (Way 90). Nick sees that there is nothing that Tom and Daisy live for. Without goals to work towards, like money, a spouse, or children, they are destroyed from the inside. This is ironic because their lives are what everyone is working

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What Does The Grass Symbolize In The Great Gatsby