The Green Color of Hope

Green. Green is the color that takes the image of dream in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald mentions this color through different parts of the novel. "I saw that I was not alone...He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and as far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock." (Pg. 26)  Here, the reference to the color Green is implicit. Fitzgerald mentions the color at the end of Daisy's dock and how Gatsby tries to reach for it, however he leaves its meaning vague and unmentioned. Here, what the reader can infer later through out the book, is that this light represents Gatsby's love for Daisy. How the light is the object he simbolizes as Daisy, as if Daisy herself were the unreachable green light. It becomes the symbol of Gatsby's desire and how he tries to reach it. 

The color is once again mentioned in the end. 
"I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for the Dutch sailor's eyes-a fresh, green beast of the new world...Gatsby belived in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther." 

Fitzgerald use of the same color for both quotes, can make the reader infer that both symbols mean the same thing. Daisy and Gatsby's story represent the american dream itself and how an average american tried to reach it by uselessly but optimistically trying to transform their desires into a reality, portraying Daisy as the golden girl, or in other words the american dream. Therefore, if Daisy represents the american dream, and the green light represents Daisy: The green light is representation of the pursuit for American Dream.