Boats Against the Current

I'll admit that literature's never really been my thing, but this entire article seems premised on a bizarre misreading of The Great Gatsby:

She is inspired by the green light at the end of the dock, which for Jay Gatsby, the self-made millionaire from North Dakota, symbolizes the upper-class woman he longs for. “Green color always represents hope,” Jinzhao said.

“My green light?” said Jinzhao, who has been studying “Gatsby” in her sophomore English class at the Boston Latin School. “My green light is Harvard.”

Insofar as Harvard is, as I can attest, actually not that great I suppose there's a sort of ironic aptness here. At any rate, others have gotten at the main issue here, but the part where it gets really weird is as some kids get that the book is a critique of the American dream but then don't evince any understanding of what the critique is:

One of Will’s classmates, Ashley Waters, 16, who helps her father with his antique consignment business, agreed. “The American dream is possible, but it’s just really hard,” she said. “Everything is so expensive — the price of college, housing. Look at the price of gas. The economy is going down.”

As if Fitzgerald were writing a DCCC press release or Hillary Clinton's stump speech. Oy.