Lights are everywhere

But, What do they mean in Literature?

Could they mean something more than what they look like?

GOD

TRUTH

BEAUTY

I glanced seaward — and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness. (Chapter 1)

“If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,” said Gatsby. “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.”Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. (Chapter 5)

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning —— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. (Chapter 9)

In Conclusion: Part 1

But a chair,  sunlight, flowers:  these are not to be dismissed. I am alive,  I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight. (Chapter 2)

I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in their red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The red gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them  up, pull them onto my hands, finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red: the colour of blood, which defines us. (Chapter 2)

I go to the window and sit on the window seat, which is too narrow for comfort. There’s  a hard little cushion on it, with a petit-point cover: FAITH, in square print, surrounded by a wreath of lilies. FAITH is a faded blue, the leaves of the lilies a dingy green. (Chapter 10)

In Conclusion: Part 2

Famous Examples of the Use of Light in Classic & Recreational Literature

The Red Light

Piece: The SignalMan

Author: Charles Dickens

Time: 1866

 terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel...So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world. 

The Ghosts

Piece: A Christmas Carol

Author: Charles Dickens

Time: 1843

...a bright clear jet of light.

The Light on the Moor

Piece: The Hound of Baskervilles

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Time: 1902

"Let us see if there is any answer."...for a tiny pinpoint of yellow light had suddenly fixed the dark veil, and glowed steadily in the centre of the black square framed by the window.

The Lamppost

Piece: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia)

Author:  C.S. Lewis

Time: 1950

...if we pass this post and lantern, either we shall find strange adventures or else some great changes of our fortunes.

Piece: Harry Potter Series

Author: J.K. Rowling

Time: 1997-2007

Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

"It looked like a silver cigarette lighter, but it had, he knew, the power to suck all light from a place, and restore it, with a simple click. (The Deluminator)"

The Deluminator, The Goblet of Fire, The Patronus

"Lumos"

What does all of this mean for us?