The Art of Authors: Symbolism Authors may use symbols to convey a complex message with only a few words or to create imagery for their audience. This allows the reader to understand what the author implies and even lets the reader interpret the message themselves and apply it to their own life. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the symbols of the green light with the color green, the directions of East and West, and the Valley of Ashes to portray the messages to his audience.
One of the symbols used in The Great Gatsby is the green light and the color green. When Gatsby sees the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, it represents what he is trying to grasp in the near future. As it is said in the novel, this light represented Gatsby’s “unattainable dream,” the “dream [that] must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it" (180). Even though he is a wealthy man, he longs for something that money cannot buy. Gatsby wants the love of Daisy. Despite the fact that he is surrounded by his own wealth, he wants, even more, riches, which is signified in the green light. The American
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West Egg is filled with those of new money working from the war, East Egg is filled with those who engulf themselves in their own old money. This image is brought to life through Nick’s eyes when he states, “I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two [...] Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water”(5). These separate towns mimic the United States division of the eastern and western region. Throughout the story, we come to recognize that the East Egg people don’t turn out how they seem to be pronounced; while, they may have more money they may be just as depraved as those in the East. Also, The West Egg people seem more hard-working than those in East Egg, who are able to obtain whatever they may want just because of their