The 1920s were a time of big dreams, moral decline, and hardship in America. The Roaring Twenties were a completely different time with its bootleggers and speakeasies, women becoming more independent, the poor getting poorer, but through it all, the American dream kept hope afloat. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured this era in his book The Great Gatsby. Through its many symbols, it illustrates the hopes, the forgotten God and the oppressed Americans of the 1920s. The symbols in The Great Gatsby help convey several different themes, from wealth to loss of morality to poverty. The green light in The Great Gatsby is an ambiguous symbol. The green light is misleading at first, making the reader believe that it is simply a symbol of hope. “Gatsby believed in the green light, in the orgiastic future which, year after year, recedes before us. It escaped us then, but it doesn’t matter: tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms further… And one fine morning…” (Fitzgerald 189). Gatsby thinks the green light will answer his prayers. It's his rock, the only thing that keeps him from despair. It feeds on the presence of the green light. “These green symbols along with the green light at the end of Buchanan Pier are just smaller, newer versions of the Emerald City – full of promise and meaning but ultimately misleading.” (Barrett 1) ​​Gatsby often looks at the light when he thinks about his goals in life. For Gatsby, light is all he ever wanted, all he ever needed, and the only reason he is who he is now. “...the colossal significance of this light was now gone forever. Compared to the great distance between him and Daisy, it had seemed very close, almost touching her. ...... middle of paper ......Literary Resource Center. Gale.January 13, 2011Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “The Great Gatsby.” New York. Macmillan Publishing Company, 1925. Gross, Dalton and Gross, Mary Jean. Understanding The Great Gatsby. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998. Hermanson, Casie E. “A Glimpse of The Great Gatsby.” Literary Resource Center 2011. Literary Resource Center. Gale of wind. January 12, 2011Koster, Katie de. Reading about The Great Gatsby. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc, 1998. Randall, Dale BJ "The 'Seeing' and 'Seen' Themes in Gatsby and Some of Their Parallels in Eliot and Wright." » Twentieth Century Literary Criticism 2007. Literary Resource Center. Gale of wind. January 11, 2011 Shmoop editorial team. “The Symbolism, Imagery, and Allegory of Great Gatsby.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., November 11, 2008. January 10 2011