What Does The Green Light Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

Throughout The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby’s hopes and dreams played an important theme throughout the novel. Fitzgerald depicted this theme as the American Dream of 1920s. According to the dictionary the American Dream is defined as the idea in which everyone has the equal chance to live better and richer in hope of rising social status according to their hard work and through their determination. Symbols such as the green light and Gatsby’s wealth represent this dream and hope throughout the novel.
Evidence of such hope is seen throughout Gatsby’s romance with Daisy, the love of his life. His ambition to become as equally rich shows that he was willing to do whatever to impress her, due to the fact that she was already part

of a higher class of people and due to her marriage with Tom Buchanan who was a filthy rich man. In contrast, when Gatsby met her he was part of a lower social class as mentioned briefly-“James Gatz-that that was really, or at least legally, his name.... His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people-his imagination had never accepted them as his parents at all.” (page 98). The reader can infer he was a poor because in the text mentioned above it said that his parents were “shiftless and unsuccessful”. So how could he ever keep his girl if she was used to a life of luxury? Well of course working could be a solution, but not just anywhere, at least somewhere where he could earn lots of money and fast.
Page 90 talks about how Gatsby found the means to buy a house across from Daisy’s.“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay”(pg 78).

In addition, the green light that Gatsby saw from Daisy’s house also showed the significance of Gatsby’s hope and dream to pursue his happiness with Daisy. “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”(pg 93). He felt that Daisy seemed “near” to him when really they were being separated by a huge body of water thus for, the “colossal significance” was his whole motivation to try and impress her, to pursue his American Dream. Furthermore, keep in mind that his house was the place in which he hosted the biggest parties of the city/town and many important people came to them...“It took me just three years to earn the money that brought it.... I thought you inherited your money. I did old sport... but then I lost most of it in the big panic war.... I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I’m not in either one now”(pg 90). “I was in the drug business” represents in many ways the American people during this era because it was a time period in which crime rates increased due to bootlegging which became very popular as an effect from Prohibition. Thus representing the American Dream making it easy to make many rich

furthermore making more and more people change their social statuses.
AnotherAnother way Gatsby impressed Daisy was by giving her a tour through the inside of his house... “With enchanting murmurs Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky, admired the gardens, the sparkling odor of jonquils and the frothy odor of hawthorn and plum blossom and the pale gold odor of kiss-me-at-the-gate.....as we wandered through Marie Antoinette music-rooms and Restoration salons...through period bedrooms swathed in rose lavender silk and vivid with new flowers”(pg 90-91). A “Marie Antoinette's music-room” was a room with french design meaning that only the rich had these particular inspired rooms because when looked up these rooms look very fancy due to the fact that Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French revolution. Also, the reader can infer that Daisy was impressed because in the text it said that “Daisy admired this aspect”, meaning that she approved of with pleasure (definition of admired). Gatsby’s wealth (house) represents the American Dream of the 1920s as a result of bettering one’s life by achieving in whatever means to live in a better place or at least have the same things of those who posses such wealth.
In contrast to those who represent the rest of the American people of the 1920s, who were mainly the majority, the people who were in a lower social status, those who made a living due the rise of Industrialization.

Fitzgerald described it as the “Valley of ashes”, where the reader can come to conclusion that it was where many factories and stuff were located, or at least the jobs in which one did not have to go to school for... “ where ashes take forms of houses and chimneys”.“ This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight”(page

23).
In conclusion, there are many more symbols such as the ones previously stated above that represent The American Dream of the 1920s, as depicted by Fitzgerald. Throughout Gatsby’s dreams and hopes he accomplished to show the condition in which many Americans lived during this time period. According through their means of hope to rise social status and live a better and richer life through their hard work and through their determination.