Fitzgerald introduces a prominent symbol early in his novel. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock represents Gatsby’s “dreams and hopes” (Wikipedia), more specifically, Gatsby’s American Dream. He has achieved money and fame, but not yet love – Daisy is the culmination of his dream. To him, that light is his faith in the future – “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (Fitzgerald 189). However, Fitzgerald uses this symbol to advance his notion of the decline of the American Dream. Gatsby’s dream is unattainable, perhaps because of the unworthiness of its object, much like the “new” American Dream of the 1920s. Gatsby lives in West Egg, full of newly made rich people and expatriates, who have made their money in illegal ways. The green light is located in East Egg, home of the old aristocracy and families who have had their wealth for a long time. The “new” American Dream of the twenties is to get rich quick and live a lavish, material-filled life, but it “has been corrupted by the desire for materialism” (Online Literature), much like Gatsby’s dream has become corrupted by its object.
