Symbols
Gatsby's Room
- "His bedroom was the simplest of all" (91)
- Gatsby's room is much simpler than the rest of the house
- This is the part of the house that no one really gets so see
- The rest of his house represents his external image, and what other people see when they see him. But his room represents what kind of person he truly is, internally.
The Weather
- the weather represents Gatsby's mood
- When Gatsby first goes to Nicks house to meet Daisy, it is very rainy which may reflect Gatsby's mood as being down, nervous, anxious, etc;
- But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room. ‘Oh, hello, old sport,’ he said, as if he hadn’t seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands. ‘It’s stopped raining.’
‘Has it?’ When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinkle-bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weather man, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to Daisy. ‘What do you think of that? It’s stopped raining.’ ‘I’m glad, Jay.’ Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy.
The Green Light at the end of Daisy's Dock
- It represents Daisy, the light thats been guiding him and giving him hope
- Green represents a spring or a new beginning as hope or promise for a relationship with Daisy. Light represents dreams and hopes.
Gatsby's Shirts
- While Gatsby is showing Daisy his mansion, they stop in Gatsby's room and he starts throwing piles and piles of expensive shirts to show them to Daisy
- This represents his wealth.
- "He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray."