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 · Narrator
Context
Immediately after Gatsby mentions the green light to Daisy, Nick speculates that Gatsby may realize the light has lost its symbolic power now that Daisy is physically present. The object that once represented all of Gatsby's longing has been reduced to its literal materiality.
Analysis
The simile 'as close as a star to the moon' is brilliantly paradoxical—stars appear close to the moon only from earth's perspective; in reality they are incomprehensibly distant—revealing that the green light's apparent proximity to Daisy was always an illusion of perspective sustained by Gatsby's desire. The elegiac phrase 'his count of enchanted objects had diminished by one' articulates the novel's central tragedy: fulfillment necessarily disenchants, and each dream realized is a dream lost, suggesting that Gatsby's project of recovery was doomed not by failure but by the nature of desire itself.
How to Use in Essay
Perhaps the most important passage for essays on how the novel argues that desire requires distance to survive, or for analyzing the paradox that Gatsby's dream can only exist in a state of unfulfillment—making his success indistinguishable from his loss.