God sees everything Discuss the importance of vision and blindness in Essay

God sees everything Discuss the importance of vision and blindness in 'The Great Gatsby' - Essay Example This paper will particularly discuss the importance of the concepts of vision and blindness in the novel. The Great Gatsby presents a complex vision of the interrelation between impulses, and its final meaning resides in an understanding of the nature of that relationship. This brings us to the fact that in the novel, women are portrayed as the object of such impulses and therefore, a key to understanding such thesis. According to Judith Fetterly (1978), the American literature in regard to the romantic nostalgia set store on the sense of wonder, which is intimately and expectedly paired with a sense of loss and that women are usually used as counters to these emotions. (p. 75) Fitzgerald’s vision of lost America is widely regarded as the same with Gatsby’s vision of Daisy. In the male mind, which is collectively those of Gatsby, Carraway and Fitzgerald’s, the impulse to wonder is instinctively associated with the image of woman, and the ensuing gambits of the romantic imagination are played out in female metaphors. What this means for us is that in the novel, Gatsby is the incarnation of the American visionary and his story is the chronicle of the quintessential â€Å"American dream† with Daisy herself as America, like the old island that flowered once for the Dutch sailor eyes - the freshest green breast of the new world. (Fitzgerald p. 140) She was the conscious and subconscious focus of Gatsby’s visions and actions. The â€Å"green light† in the novel further provided insight in this regard. At the end of Chapter I, Nick Carraway, lingered on the lawn for sometime, under the stars, and became aware that Gatsby was there, too: I decided to call on him†¦ But I didn’t†¦ for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone – he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, as far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a