The light at the end of Daisy’s dock in The Great Gatsby is green. Gatsby watches it from his mansion across the water, making the distant glow one of the novel’s most memorable images.
The light is located at the end of the dock belonging to Daisy Buchanan and Tom Buchanan in East Egg. Gatsby lives across the bay in West Egg, and the physical distance between them reflects the emotional and social barriers separating Gatsby from the future he imagines with Daisy.
Green carries several connected meanings. It suggests hope, renewal, desire, and the promise of a future, while also evoking money and the American Dream. Gatsby reaches toward the light because he believes the past can be recovered and Daisy can become part of his idealized future.
Readers sometimes confuse this symbol with a traffic signal or assume it simply represents jealousy. Its meaning is broader: by the novel’s conclusion, the green light also symbolizes the way people continually pursue an almost unreachable goal. Fitzgerald published the novel in 1925, setting it largely in the summer of 1922.