In order to reach the light, Gatsby had to acquire a respected position in society and also he had to acquire money in order to satisfy Daisy’s shallowness and greed. “Rich girls don’t marry poor boys.” “Her [Daisy] voice is full of money.” The color green is also open to represent the money and prosperity, which Gatsby has obtained over the years in order to finally reunite himself with Daisy and win her love, finally fulfilling his life-long agenda. Money rules the lives of all the characters in the story, and more importantly, Fitzgerald also shows money is the sole motivation for the American society during the 1920s. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald uses many other images or symbols. At first, it may seem very basic, but when the symbol is closely studied, one may see the deeper meaning found within it. Fitzgerald uses these symbols to make a point across to the reader. He then uses this point and converts it into a deeper meaning, into a myth about America. The green light mentioned in the novel clearly represents and is a prime example of this. The color green not only represents Gatsby’s dream but also the dream of America that insinuated the possibility of prosperity for all Americans. The American Dream originated in the early days of the American settlement, with the mostly poor immigrants searching for opportunities. It was first manifested in the Declaration of Independence, which describes an attitude of hope. The Declaration of Independence states that “all man are created equal and that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”. In The Great Gatsby, the color green symbolizes for importance of money during this era, not only in the life Gatsby where his motive is to win Daisy but also in the lives of all of Americans. Gatsby’s home erected only to buttress the identity of Gatsby as a successful businessman is covered with “raw ivy” and sits on “more than forty acres of [green] lawn and garden.” The circumstance regarding Gatsby’s home reaffirms the symbolization of the color green as an insinuation of wealth and hope of reaching a specified dream. Also, Nick writes that as he and Gatsby are on there way to a luncheon, he is “sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory.” As Fitzgerald saw it, the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast.
Fitzgerald’s intent in showing a parallelism between Gatsby’s dream and America’s dream is to show that both dreams have fallacious qualities, yet both Gatsby and American are unwilling to recognize the signs in order to realize the dream’s destruction. Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, as Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. By the end of the novel the color green is related to sickness and death. “In the sunlight his [George Wilson] face was green.” Gatsby's dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, money and pleasure. The values have totally changed, instead of striving for equality, they just want to get as rich as they could get. So it is not surprising that the new kind of "American Dream" fails several times, which F. Scott Fitzgerald describes in his book. “It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.” Fitzgerald depicts an Italian boy not willing to celebrate the birth of the American dream on July 4 because the boy has not witnessed the legend and for all he knows, it is dead. This depiction reaffirms Fitzgerald’s main focus on announcing the death of the American dream. Neither dream that occurs in the novel has any validity to it. Both dreams had manifested themselves through the illusions concocted by the novel’s characters. The American dream was “in effect [dead] July 5, 1922.”
The Great Gatsby depicts the destruction of two dreams, Gatsby’s and also America’s. Through the use of color symbolization, specifically green, Fitzgerald is able to show the relation between Gatsby’s dream and also the American dream. As a result of this, the read is able to understand the major theme of the book more easily. The reader is able to make the connection and understand that Fitzgerald is aiming to falsify the legend of the American dream. Although Gatsby’s achieves the dream, in the end, he is left dead and without the hope of winning Daisy’s love. Both, Daisy and the American dream, are the objects of infatuation, and both are an illusion. As Fitzgerald illustrates the death of Gatsby’s dream, he also announces the death of the American dream. The novel uses green to illustrate both dreams, yet by the conclusion of the novel, green is used to illustrate sickness and death, at which point Fitzgerald has used the color to make the transition between the idea of the dream to the idea of the reality.