Two important symbols in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are the green light and the valley of ashes. Both symbols connect to the novel’s main theme of how the unchecked, unbridled pursuit of wealth leads to destruction. The green light appears early in the novel as a symbol of what Gatsby longs and strives for. Nick, the narrator, describes Gatsby standing alone and content, though he thinks “he was trembling,” to stare across the water at the light: “I involuntarily glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.” The reader discovers later when Gatsby is talking to Daisy, the green light is near her house: “‘You always have a green light that burns