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El destello verde

Author: Lidia Diaz Suarez

The Green Light

The Green Flash: an atmospheric and optical phenomenon that occurs after sunset and before moonrise.

Standing by the sea at the last moment of sunlight before nightfall, one might occasionally glimpse a fleeting green flash on the horizon. Much like a mirage, the light seems a thing of magic but it is not. The green flash is a natural phenomenon that has inspired and fascinated humanity throughout history. This fleeting glow has been associated with the fantastic, the unattainable, the sublime and the romantic, serving as a symbol in literature and cinema of eternal love, transformation, and the pursuit of the impossible. 

One of the earliest and most significant literary examples of the green flash is the science fiction novel The Green Ray (1882) by Jules Verne. In this novel, Verne tells the tale of a young woman named Helena, who seeks the green flash, believing its appearance will reveal her lost love and signify their love will be everlasting. For the characters in Verne’s novel, the phenomenon represents a symbol of hope and the fulfilment of a deep desire, to find a love that transcends time and space. In some cultures, it is even believed that those who witness the green flash together are destined to be together forever. Verne, known for his scientific explorations and adventurous narratives, imbues the green ray with the idea of fate and eternal love, adding more magic to the already miraculous occurrence of reciprocated love. 

Also, the green flash makes an appearance in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925 during the Roaring 20’s in the United States. In the story, the main character, Jay Gatsby, observes from the shore of his mansion a green flash located in his lost love Daisy Buchanan’s dock across the bay. Daisy and Gatsby were lovers before the events of the novel, with Gatsby longing for her as his true and unattainable dream even after she gets married. The green flash becomes a symbol of Gatsby’s aspiration toward an idealised and past love, striving for something that cannot be, forever stuck in the past. Fitzgerald’s green light is not just a physical beacon on the horizon, but a sign of Gatsby’s persistent desire to rewrite his story with Daisy and achieve romantic bliss, a dream that ultimately proves to be an illusion, as ephemeral and untouchable as the natural phenomenon.

The green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock in Scott F. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).

In cinema, the green flash appears in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) by the director Gore Verbinski, where it is used to suggest the existence of a portal between the mortal world and the realm of the supernatural. When Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner and Jack Sparrow’s crew attempt to rescue Jack from Davy Jones’ Locker, the ocean abyss and land where the dead at sea go, they do so by waiting for the green flash to light the horizon. Only then will the portal to the spiritual world be open. The green light serves as a threshold for Davy Jones’ Locker, a symbolic and physical door that must be crossed to travel from the world of the living to a different plane of existence. 

One must not forget how the green flash reflects Romantic ideas of nature as something sublime and mysterious. Romantic thinkers of the 19th century, such as John Keats or William Wordsworth, saw nature not only as a reflection of physical beauty but also as a gateway to spirituality and even divinity. In this sense, the green ray is a manifestation of humanity’s connection to the divine and the transcendental. Nature becomes a medium through which humans can glimpse the sublime and experience a fleeting moment of understanding beyond the tangible and most carnal.

However it is perceived, either physically or metaphorically, the green light is an element of absolute beauty and mystery. Due to its rare nature, not everyone gets a glimpse of this magical light, the same way that not everyone experiences everlasting love, the realisation of their deepest dreams or a sense of transcendence beyond this world. And still, we cannot help but to glance at the horizon once in a blue moon, wishing for the light to grace us with magic and wonder. I, for one, will forever keep searching the horizon. 


OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
pauppic (25 de noviembre de 2024). El destello verde. El blog de Tartalo. Recuperado 19 de marzo de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/12rcj


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