The color green is traditionally associated with money, and the green light also symbolizes the wealth that Gatsby believes will enable him to win Daisy back from Tom. But Gatsby is discounting the important distinction between wealth and class made by other characters in the novel.

The green light at the end of Daisy's dock in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is symbolic of Jay Gatsby's undying love, desperation and the inability to reach the American dream. The story is set in New York during the Jazz Age. In the story, the color green represents the limitations of power and money.

"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." This line works on a few different thematic levels at the end of the novel: It sums up the story of the novel, as Gatsby has been trying to work hard enough to both erase and reclaim his past with Daisy; he is unable to do either.

Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter 9, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.