The Green Light In The Great Gatsby

3.3. Symbols
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald used symbols to convey the illusory nature of the American Dream.
3.3.1. The green light
The green light situated at the end of Daisy’s dock, represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the happy future with his erstwhile lover. In the first Chapter, he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American Dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter 9, Nick describes North America as the large, undeveloped piece of green land had filled that the original Dutch explorers with hope and ambition. He compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have

In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom Buchanan represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, his mansion is “a factual imitation of some Hotel de ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side” and with a “marble swimming pool” (1.7). He wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes ' invitation to lunch (Chapter 6). In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans ' tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker. The East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money 's ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than considered attending Gatsby 's