Our theme for the month of March is “light.”

We spent at least 50% of my 10th grade English class reading The Great Gatsby, I swear. We did close readings of scenes, we watched clips from the sweaty, sweaty 1974 film, and we talked endlessly about symbolism. I remember completing a weeks-long project with my friend Mackenzie that involved green Christmas lights shoved through a tri-fold display board.

And through it all, I could not figure out why I should possibly sympathize with Gatsby. He has been weirdly, bordering on creepily, pining after this girl for five years. He thinks that if he creates this perfect life for himself, he can “win” Daisy back for himself. So he stares at this green light for years. My English teacher told me that the green light symbolized “his hopes for the future.” I was unconvinced.

As a teenage girl, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than a man dreaming about the idea of me from afar for several years. Why would this man not approach me? Why did this man have nothing better to do with his time? Did this man even know me or did he just make up a version of me in his brain?

I simply could not muster up the inspiration that my teacher seemed to feel when she talked about Gatsby’s virtues.

Last fall I went to see the new off-Broadway production of The Great Gatsby. I felt the same disillusionment that had been planted in my malleable teen brain and largely attended it to see Jeremy Jordan perform in person.

As I settled into my seat after sprinting from my distant parking spot, I was still unimpressed by Jay Gatsby. Empathy began to creep in when the show brought to my attention the fact that he was a veteran of World War I. Ah yes, I thought, Gatsby is traumatized and that’s why he has been pining after a green light for years. Not sure how I missed that tidbit on the first semester-long read through, but it began to make sense.

Then I watched the Myrtle character unfold and I thought Oh, that is who I am actually supposed to empathize with. This poor woman is lost to the dehumanizing dredges of institutional poverty and sexism. She has no prospects, no freedom, and no chance for upward mobility. One of the final songs in the musical is fixated on her belting out her emotions as she stumbles through the darkness looking for Tom. That was the song that got me, tears and all.

Convinced I was missing something, I turned to the famous last section of the book. What is this green light, and why should I care? I fought down the residual teen angst that arose in me and went straight to Spark Notes.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.

Wait a minute. Gatsby isn’t the hero here. Gatsby is a symbol for all the people out there that have deluded themselves into believing in a future that will never be?

I’ll give it to you, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald: this is a much more compelling premise than I was first led to believe. You are far less patriotic than your namesake and far more in tune with the suffering that festered in the aftermath of trench warfare carried out by teenage boys.

Clearly I missed something. Maybe I was too busy worrying about how many hours until the next cross country dinner. Maybe sixteen-year-olds struggle to conceptualize the disillusionment of middle age.

At least my gut instinct was right. Gatsby is not a heroic figure, and his traumatized desperation should have given me the creeps. But I think that may have been the point.

Susannah Boersma

Susannah currently lives in New Jersey and works as a 7th grade ELA teacher in East Harlem. When she is not teaching or writing, she can be found exploring independent bookstores, going backpacking, and trying to roller-skate on all the cool trails in the city. She is also recently experienced in the art of citrus skunk repellent (I know you’re impressed).

1 Comment

Kyric Koning on March 7, 2024 at 11:23 pm

I suppose a traumatic post about Gatsby had to happen at some point. It is cool how our perspectives of characters change over time (and sometimes never do, for good reason). But it seems like you have acquired some more empathy and awareness, and those are good things to have and hold.
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