What are three symbols in The Great Gatsby?

Three of the main symbols in The Great Gatsby are the green light, the valley of ashes, and Gatsby's clothes.

The green light:
From his house in West Egg, Gatsby can look across the Sound and see Daisy's house in East Egg. He is often seen standing on his lawn at night, looking wistfully toward a green light that burns on Tom and Daisy's dock. For him, this light represents his longing for Daisy, who seems so remote from him, yet so sublime, like a star. In chapter five, when Gatsby finally gets to meet Daisy again, he tells her,

"If it wasn't for the mist we could see your home across the bay ... You have always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock."

Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever.

The significance has vanished forever because now that he has the presence of Daisy herself, his enchanted dream of her is gone. The light, then, could be said to symbolize not just Gatsby's longing for Daisy and her way of life (which Nick calls Gatsby's "incorruptible dream"), but also the transience of that dream and the impossibility that things could ever actually be as Gatsby imagines.

The valley of ashes:
The valley of ashes is Nick's term for an industrial area between West Egg and New York City. In one of the links below is an article where the author shows the actual historical location of the valley of ashes, "the vast trash-burning operation in north-central Queens in the exact spot that is now Flushing Meadows-Corona Park." The valley of ashes is as different as could be from the large, gracious houses of East and West Egg. However, the residents of the Eggs have to pass through this valley every time they go to the city. They cannot ignore it. So, among other things, it symbolizes the vast difference between their lives and those of working-class people.

The inescapability of the valley of ashes hints that it symbolizes something deeper as well. The Buchanans would never consider living there, and Gatsby has spent his whole life trying to escape from places like this; nevertheless some of the novel's most important events happen in the valley. This is the home of Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, and her husband George, who runs a garage. It is in the valley of ashes, right in front of the Wilsons' garage, that Daisy runs over Myrtle Wilson while driving drunk. It is from the valley of ashes that George Wilson emerges to confront Tom and kill Gatsby.

In other words, though Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby have tried to insulate themselves from the valley of ashes, they end up having to deal with it, and it even in a sense comes after them. You could say, then, that the valley also symbolizes death, fate, or perhaps simply real life.

Gatsby's clothes:
Gatsby seeks to create the impression of fabulous wealth and decadence, not only with his huge house and massive parties, but with his clothes. There is the scene in chapter five where Gatsby, manic with joy at finally meeting Daisy again, opens his closet and starts throwing his expensive shirts out onto the bed for her to admire. They are in glowing colors, "shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange."

The shirts help paint a picture of Gatsby's character. Gatsby is newly rich and probably has wilder taste in shirts than Tom, whose taste is likely to be more restrained. His imagination is full of impossibly beautiful hopes and longings, and he is willing to do anything to make them happen, just as he is the sort of person who buys dozens of showy shirts every season.

The connection between Gatsby's clothes and his class is made even more clear in chapter seven, during the horrible showdown between Gatsby, Daisy and Tom. Gatsby is wearing a bright pink suit during this confrontation. When someone mentions to Tom that Gatsby is "an Oxford man," and Tom sneers, "An Oxford man! Like hell he is. He wears a pink suit." Here, Gatsby's flamboyant clothing represents his "new money" status, while Tom's contempt for Gatsby's suit highlights the class divide between "old" and "new" money.

After the big confrontation at the hotel, Myrtle is tragically killed when Daisy accidentally hits her with Gatsby's car. Gatsby is still wearing the pink suit at the end of that awful evening, and Nick remarks,

I must have felt pretty weird by that time, because I could think of nothing except the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon.

At this point, Nick is feeling angry and disgusted with Gatsby, who helped Daisy flee the scene of the crime. The cheerfulness of Gatsby's pink suit seems glaringly inappropriate after what has just happened, and Gatsby himself only seems to care about Myrtle's death insofar as it affects Daisy. In this moment, Gatsby's flashy and inappropriate clothes symbolize the ways in which Gatsby—with his obsession with wealth and naive dreams of an ideal life with Daisy—is shallow, hollow, and disconnected from reality.

Some additional symbols in The Great Gatsby include Gatsby's mansion, car, and library.

Gatsby's mansion and car:
Gatsby's ostentatious home and car could certainly be considered symbolic of his failure to understand that being a member of society's upper crust is not just about being rich. Gatsby seems to think that money is all that is required for success, that a vast fortune will confer upon him the same social status that Tom and Daisy Buchanan enjoy. Eager to be seen as an elite member of society, Gatsby flaunts his wealth with his rather gaudy and obviously costly yellow car (that Tom calls a "circus wagon") and his over-the-top mansion in West Egg. People not born into wealth, like Gatsby himself, might think Gatsby's flashy purchases are all very fashionable and fancy, but to "old money" folks like Daisy and Tom, it is a clear sign that Gatsby is not one of them. Thus, Gatsby's mansion and car symbolize both Gatsby's desire to be seen as successful and his "outsider" status when it comes to the elite social circles to which Daisy and Tom belong.

Gatsby's library:
When Nick encounters a man he calls "Owl Eyes" in the library at one of Gatsby's parties, Owl Eyes points out that the pages of the books in the library have not been cut apart:

"See!" he cried triumphantly. "It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too—didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?"

The fact that the pages haven't been cut means that Gatsby has never read any of the books and that the whole library is just there for show, although Owl Eyes admires that Gatsby went to the trouble of filling the shelves with real books in the first place rather than simply using fakes. "Belasco" refers to a famous theatrical producer, and by calling Gatsby a Belasco, Owl Eyes is saying that Gatsby knows how to put on a fantastic show. Just like Gatsby himself appears to be totally authentic and respectable, his books look real and are beautifully bound. The library is thus symbolic, not only of Gatsby's desire to impress others—especially Daisy—but also of his deception: he is not the upper-class, respectable, old-moneyed man that he pretends to be.

What does fall symbolize in The Great Gatsby?

In The Great Gatsby, fall is a symbolic season, particularly in chapter 5. Often in fall we experience new beginnings. It is the time of year when children go back to school and calendars are refreshed. This is the time of year when a new harvest comes in. This is the time of year when a new season ushers itself in by the winds of change.

This time of year is also questionable. Halloween brings darkness and ghosts while people retreat to their homes for warmth. The leaves fall off trees demonstrating death and decay.

In chapter 8, just before the revelation that Gatsby was dead, references to fall foreshadow the dark events as they unfold:

A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of transit, a thin red circle in the water.

These italicized clues work together to help reveal the final truth that a red circle of blood now stands where a man floating on a raft once stood. Fall predicts Gatsby's death. Fall symbolizes an end... but it can also symbolize a new beginning. Perhaps the end of Gatsby and Wilson both birthed a new beginning for Nick as he soon left the area to retreat home.

What are some symbols in the first chapter of The Great Gatsby?

Two major symbols of The Great Gatsby introduced in chapter 1 are East Egg and West Egg. They symbolize the social divide between old money and new money, respectively. They are separated by what Nick calls "a courtesy bay." It is possible that Fitzgerald also thought of eggs because of how they appear white and pure on the outside but have a yellow center, a color sometimes associated with decay or rot. Interestingly, daisies have this same color arrangement. It is possible, then, that while these two wealthy communities look clean and attractive on the surface, a glimpse into the interior reveals something unsavory.

The "thin beard of raw ivy" that covers Gatsby's mansion may be meant to symbolize the fact that Gatsby is decidedly "nouveau riche." It suggests that it has been recently planted in an attempt to make his house, built in the style of a French country hotel, look as established and stately as those of East Egg.

The name of Daisy and Tom's friend and frequent guest, Jordan Baker, is a mashup of two cars popular in the 1920s: the Jordan, a bright and attractive auto, and the Baker, a sporty, luxurious model. Jordan is described as an attractive sportswoman who utters occasional witticisms, thus making her name likely symbolic.

And finally, at chapter's end, the symbol of the green light at the end of Daisy's dock is introduced. Gatsby reaches out toward it, symbolizing his desire for his dream that is tantalizing near, yet unreachable.

What symbols are in The Great Gatsby and what do they represent?

There are a number of symbols in The Great Gatsby. Here are a few. 

The green light symbolizes growth, progress, and money. Gatsby stares at the green light and it comes to be like a beacon for him, a symbol of Daisy and what she represents for him: the American Dream. Because Gatsby felt he needed to obtain money in order to be suitable for Daisy, green also symbolizes money and is perhaps a foreshadowing symbol of the corruption and recklessness with which Gatsby pursues this dream. 

In the next chapter, the symbolism of green is juxtaposed to the grey of the Valley of Ashes and this represents the failure of the American dream, a land of forgotten opportunities. 

In Chapter 3, the books symbolize Gatsby's persona because they look like cardboard but are in fact real. Gatsby is a real person but with a constructed identity. 

Daisy is (for Gatsby) an idealization, a holy grail, the American Dream. In the broader context of the novel, she represents the realty that the American dream is unobtainable, or to be obtainable, one must be willing to embark on a path of corruption. 

Another symbol, first described in Chapter 2, is the billboard of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, ironically an oculist whose picture on the billboard "stares" over the bleak landscape of the Valley of Ashes. "They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose." America has often been described as the promised land, a place of opportunity. Doctor Eckleburg's eyes without a face staring out from the billboard symbolize a God who has essentially forsaken the land and people, leaving a lifeless poster of himself in his place. 

The green light (and Daisy) are symbols with drive Gatsby to continue his pursuit of his dream. The Valley of Ashes represents the dreams which failed. Some symbols drive the plot, but the landscapes (green and gray) and the billboard illustrate the world Gatsby lives in. By illustrating the corrupt world of East Egg and the desolation of the Valley of Ashes, Fitzgerald sets Gatsby on stage for an empty/corrupt victory or a bleak defeat. 

What are the symbols of class in The Great Gatsby?

The old-money class of East Egg is symbolized by the understated elegance of the Buchanans' house. It is "a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion," which symbolizes the traditional roots of old-money America. Nick describes his first sight of the house, "glowing now with reflected gold," with Tom Buchanan, a strong and arrogant millionaire, "standing with his legs apart on the front porch."

The working class of America is symbolized by the apartment above the gas station and auto shop of George Wilson. It is surrounded by the "valley of ashes," an industrial wasteland that will be impossible for George and Myrtle Wilson to transcend.

The nouveau riche class of the early 1920s is symbolized by Gatsby's mansion in West Egg. It attempts to project the cachet of rural France but doesn't quite pull it off, with a "thin beard of raw ivy" suggesting the newness of the construction, and the library with its unread luxury editions of books suggesting a desire for tradition and respectability instead of the real thing.

What are the color symbols in The Great Gatsby?

Colors are an important part of the symbolism used in telling the story in The Great Gatsby. Color references appear throughout the book.

White is the color of purity, of innocence. The first time readers are introduced to Daisy and Jordan, they are described in almost angelic terms.

They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.

Gray is the color of hopelessness, of the houses and businesses and people trapped in the valley of ashes. Grey is also used to indicate things or people who aren't important.

Green, most notably mentioned in connection with the "single green light...that might have been the end of a dock," is the color of life, of hope, of looking forward to a better day. Ironically, Michaelis mistakenly givens an intial report that the "death car" was "light green."

Blue is associated with depression or unhappiness. Gatsby's lawn and gardens are blue, to match the color of his mood when despairing of every fulfilling his dream relationship with Daisy.

What are the most important symbols in The Great Gatsby?

Some specific symbols include:

• The green light at the end of Daisy's dock. For Gatsby... this green has meant go, but beyond that, it's a future for him, a new life, something to look forward to.
• Locations: the Valley of Ashes, the city of New York proper, and the East and West Eggs. This Valley of Ashes is indeed where much death occurs or is sparked and the characters travel through there in order to go from the "good life" to evil quite often, almost always in the name of fun, not necessarily for business in NYC. East and West Eggs represent old and new money. The Buchanans being those who live among old.

I think the use of symbols was indicative of the era and the author. This era introduced much film and entertainment and symbols provide another layer of complexity in that. The art of the era is also impressionistic meaning much was left on the canvas for a viewer to interpret.

This reminds readers that it's worth looking at life in more than one way. Yes, sometimes we give items more meaning than they deserve, but that also provides for an additional perspective sometimes when we might otherwise look at something for it's surface value and move on.

There are a lot of symbols in this book.  Here are some examples:

• Colors.  Fitzgerald uses colors to symbolize various things.  For example, white is actually used to show lack of morality and innocence.
• Cars.  The rich people in the book are always driving and doing it very badly.  This shows how little they care about other people.
• Eyes.  The eyes on the billboard in the Valley of Ashes, especially, are meant to show that we are always being evaluated.

As far as the role of symbols in our lives, I think that the novel says that we tend to pursue symbols (Gatsby pursues Daisy) instead of the things that really matter.

What are key symbols and the role of setting in The Great Gatsby?

Fitzgerald relies heavily on symbolism in The Great Gatsby to advance his critique of Old Money society in America. Here are several of his symbols.

1. Automobiles--cars in general represent the carelessness of the wealthy in the book. Ultimately, Daisy kills Myrtle with a car, but even earlier in the novel, almost every circumstance involving automobiles depicts rich people using cars recklessly. In Chapter 1 as Nick provides information about Tom and Daisy through his narration, the reader discovers that Tom had cheated on Daisy, and it caused a scandal because he wrecked a car while driving around with one of his flings. After one of Gatsby's parties, the drunk wealthy leave Gatsby's house and cause several accidents. Finally, Jordan's dishonesty and carelessness is linked to cars. She borrows a friend's car and lies about leaving the top down which ruins it, and she nearly hits someone while she's driving with Nick.

2. The green light--At the beginning of the novel when Nick sees Gatsby reaching out toward something (Daisy's green dock light), the light symbolizes hope.  Gatsby's dream is just out reach, but he feels that he will attain it soon. At the novel's end, Nick mentions the green light, and it is simply the corrupted American Dream.  It is still there, but once someone achieves it, it has lost its luster. Additionally, it is still across the water, out of reach.

3. White--Daisy most often wears white, as do some of the other wealthy.  The color represents Old Money folks--they can afford to wear such a light color because they do not have to worry about working or soiling their clothing.  Moreover, Daisy's connection with the color is that for Gatsby she represents all that is pure.  He wants to go back to when he met her as a young socialite wearing white and relive the past.  He does not realize that she and, thus, his dream have been corrupted.

There are numerous other symbols in the novel such as the Valley of Ashes, the billboard, Owl Eyes, etc. In answer to your second question about setting, its role is all important to the novel.  Fitzgerald was nicknamed The Chronicler of the Jazz Age because he depicted his era so thoroughly.  Through Gatsby he portrays struggle between those who inherited their wealth and those who "worked" for it.  He also discusses the effects of the Roaring 20s with its materialism, bootlegging, and lavish parties upon Americans.

Setting plays an important role in developing some of Fitzgerald's themes. East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes all assume symbolic significance. East Egg, the home of the Buchanans, symbolizes the wealthy upper class that lives on inherited family money, handed down through several generations. This old money has created a class of people who enjoy the highest social status and who associate mostly with each other. They have gone to the best schools together, done business together, and follow the same rules of behvior and social convention. Fitzgerald portrays them as being arrogant, snobbish, and selfish, living life with an inbred sense of entitlement.

West Egg, home to Gatsby, is populated by those who have earned their great wealth. It symbolizes the new rich who built fortunes at the turn of the century and during the boom of the early 1920s. This new money lacks social acceptance, and those who possess it are considered by the elite in American society to be gauche and crass. They lack "breeding."

The Valley of Ashes, where George and Myrtle live, symbolizes the grinding poverty of the underclass in American society and the industrialization that built American capitalism at the expense of some. This awful, dirty place with its pervasive, enveloping smoke and ash-filled air contrasts starkly with the lush, green beauty of both East Egg and West Egg.

Also, the East and the West take on symbolic meaning. The East symbolizes the corruption of the original American Dream; the West is symbolic of America's history and founding ideals, all that once made it great. Nick, as a midwesterner, serves as Fitzgerald's voice of midwestern morality. When Nick rejects the East and the corruption it stands for, choosing to abandon his career and go back home, one of Fitzgerald's major themes is made clear.

What are the major motifs and symbols in The Great Gatsby?

Certainly, the green light at the end of Daisy's dock is a major symbol in the text. For Gatsby, it seems to represent the life of possibility that he envisions with Daisy: their love, their money, and his dream of being together. He imagines that they will want for nothing, that they will finally be able to be together with no strings attached and nothing detracting from their love. It is, in many ways, symbolic of the idea of the American Dream in general; however, the fact that it is attached to the property of people who have never had to work or struggle or persevere against any odds seems to indicate that such a Dream is an illusion.

The billboard promoting the optometry practice of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg also seems to be a symbol. George Wilson seems to think of those big eyes as being God, and -- in a way -- money does seem like a god in this society. Money seems to determine who gets to be successful or popular, who gets what they want and who does not. People worship it, so to speak. There does not seem to be some higher power watching over people, answering prayers, or ensuring that people do not suffer needlessly; in fact, money seems to be the highest power there is, symbolized by the fact that an advertisement designed to increase revenue is conflated with God in the horrible and tragic valley of ashes.

What are four to five symbols or images that represent Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, and how do they reflect his experiences or influences from other characters?

In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an image or a graphic that represents Jay Gatsby is his house. Nick says it:

... was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion.

Gatsby’s house is ostentatious because he wants to impress Daisy. He views the house as a sign of his immense recently-acquired wealth and does not realize that “old moneyed” people like Daisy and Tom Buchanan will think it pretentious.

The lavish parties Gatsby gives are also symbols. He uses them to show off his wealth and in the hope that Daisy will come to one. The parties show the impact that Daisy has on Gatsby. Jordan says to Nick:

“I think he half expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,” went on Jordan,“but she never did.”

Another symbol, although not a visual one, is Gatsby’s frequent use of the term “old sport.” This is Gatsby’s affectation to further the image he has recreated of himself as someone born to wealth and privilege. In fact, his entire manner of speech is intended to further the false image. Thus, it reflects how the privileged people Gatsby has met have impacted his life and created his immense desire to be one of them. Gatsby tells Nick:

"Well, I’m going to tell you something about my life ...

I am the son of some wealthy people in the middle-west—all dead now. I was brought up in America but educated at Oxford because all my ancestors have been educated there for many years. It is a family tradition ...

My family all died and I came into a good deal of money."

Gatsby does not realize that this entire speech amuses Nick because it is so preposterous and pretentious. Nick writes, "With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare."

Furthering the image that he has cultivated is also the reason that he wants to show off his hydroplane, which is another symbol of his wealth and reflection of his aspiration to be seen as privileged. It reflects the impact that people like Daisy and Tom have had on him. Nick says, “Evidently he lived in this vicinity for he told me that he had just bought a hydroplane.”

Gatsby’s car and chauffeur are other status symbols. Nick says,

A chauffeur in a uniform of robin’s egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer—the honor would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night.

The car figures importantly in the narrative when it becomes “the death car,” which is both ironic and tragic, as it leads to Gatsby's murder. Thus, his surrounding himself with symbols of wealth was also a catalyst in his own death.

What are the most important symbols in The Great Gatsby?

Some of the salient symbols from the novel are the light on East Egg and Gatsby's stock of shirts. 

Gatsby's tendency to dream and to yearn are expressed in his choice to buy a house that overlooked the glowing green light that marks East Egg. He gazes out at this literal beacon and feels that he is closing in on his dream that the light symbolizes for him - a dream of wealth and love. 

Later a scene that Nick watches between Gatsby and Daisy features a wealth of shirts. Daisy exclaims about how beautiful the shirts are. She seems to see in this moment that she did not need to rush into a marriage with Tom. She should have waited for Gatsby. He could have given her all she wanted - perhaps more than she now has - and he could have given her real love. 

The shirts represent the romantic and ideal alternative to reality that she and Gatsby both cling to for a time. 

What are four significant symbols in The Great Gatsby and their meanings?

The green light at the end of Daisy's dock is symbolic, in many ways, of the American Dream.  It represents hope for the future, that if a person works hard enough and long enough, they can prosper and be happy.  Nick sees Gatsby reaching out toward the light at the end of the first chapter, and in the final lines of the novel, he calls the light "the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that's no matter -- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning--."  We can, put simply, never actually reach the light.  No matter how hard we work or try or dream, we can never really reach that American Dream, and its elusiveness ought to make us pity Gatsby, and even Myrtle and George Wilson, as victims of its unattainability.

In Chapter IV, having been reunited with Daisy after five years, Gatsby almost breaks a clock at Nick's house when Nick invites them both for tea at Gatsby's request.  Gatsby longs, and believes that it is possible, to repeat the past.  He tells Nick this very thing later in the story.  However, it is not possible to stop time or to revisit the past, and the fact that he almost breaks the clock represents his desire to stop time, while the fact that he doesn't break the clock symbolizes his inability to do so.

The valley of ashes, where the Wilsons live, is a place where everything is so covered in ashes that the houses and people and landscape appear to be made of ashes.  It is the product of industry, the industry that makes just a few very, very wealthy and leaves the majority with so very little.  Wilson, for example, works so hard, but he cannot earn enough money even to be able to afford to move elsewhere.  The valley, therefore, symbolizes the great gulf between those few individuals who prosper and the vast majority who are used up, reduced to ash, by the demands of the prosperous.  It certainly helps us to understand and sympathize with someone like George Wilson.

The deaths of Gatsby and the Wilsons is symbolic of the death of the American Dream.  When Gatsby tries to reach it honestly, he finds that it is impossible, and so he attempts to reach it illegally (which means that he does not actually achieve it).  Then, George and Myrtle each try to better their situations, in different ways, and neither is successful either.  No one can really get what they want in a world that is corrupt enough to give all the privilege to terrible people like Tom and Daisy simply because they possess "old money" and status.

What are the important symbols in The Great Gatsby?

There is no shortage of important symbols in The Great Gatsby, although perhaps the most famous is the green light that Gatsby views across the water from his property. The light emanates from Daisy's house and as such is closely associated with Daisy herself. More specifically, the light is a representation of the love between Gatsby and Daisy; it exists, but the two of them are separate from one another, divided not only by a body of water but also by Daisy's marriage.

The green light is also a representation of the American dream and Gatsby's inability to achieve that dream. Even though he has immense wealth (another thing the light is meant to signify), he is still deeply unhappy, as he cannot share it with the one person whom he truly loves. In this sense, the American dream is revealed as a facade. If Gatsby cannot achieve happiness, even with all that he owns, perhaps Americans are placing value on the wrong things.

What is the symbolism in The Great Gatsby?

To construct a five by five essay with the symbolism in The Great Gatsby as the subject, one could begin by choosing three main symbols to explore in the body paragraphs.

A prominent symbol in the novel is the green light at the end of Tom and Daisy Buchanan's dock. It is visible across the bay at Jay Gatsby's mansion, and to him represents his dream of reclaiming the woman he loves. It is mentioned in the novel's opening and closing chapters.

A second symbol to analyze is the faded billboard that features the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. The disembodied eyes overlook the Valley of Ashes, and George Wilson refers to them as the eyes of God when he is berating his wife for her infidelity. The fact that Dr. Eckleburg can no longer correct anyone's vision can be thought of as symbolic of the distorted moral vision of so many of the novel's characters.

A third examination of symbolism in the novel could analyze women's names (Daisy, Myrtle, Jordan), various colors (white, yellow, gold, green) or the recurring motif of increments of time.

Introducing the symbols in the first paragraph and making transitions that link ideas (such as how the symbols function to develop characters, establish mood or advance the plot) between the paragraphs would make the essay cohesive as it is developed.

A final paragraph could comment on the effectiveness of the symbols in achieving the author's goals.

What image or graphic represents a character in The Great Gatsby? Can you identify 4-5 additional symbols?

What an interesting assignment! You might consider using Jay Gatsby himself. In terms of symbols that are associated with him, one of the first that comes to mind is the green light at the end of Daisy's dock; it can be seen as representative of the American Dream, a fantasy that he can never truly reach though he continues to believe up until his very death. You might also include an image of his car—his big, flashy yellow car—which is representative of his attempts to be like the people who have old money, people like Tom and Daisy Buchanan, as well as his failure to do so. You could include an image of a bottle of alcohol: it represents the way he has made his fortune, by engaging in criminal activity, and it has granted him fortune but will never equal the American Dream.

You might include a picture of his medal that he claims was awarded him by Montenegro, his large and ostentatious mansion, or his shelves of books with uncut pages, as all of these might seem to point to his ability to put on a show, to make himself look like something he is not. You might include a picture of a World War I military uniform, since he was actually in the army. You could include an image of a timepiece, representative of his idealistic belief that one can actually turn back time and repeat the past. There are so many options!

What are major examples of symbolism in The Great Gatsby?

As a review, symbolism is objects, characters, and colors that are used in literature to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

F. Scott Fitzgerald loved using symbolism to convey his feelings on human nature and the era in which he lived.

Some of the major symbols and the meanings (that I teach to  my students through my research) are below:

Daisy's green light that Gatsby could see from his house represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams specifically, and since Gatsby represents all Americans, it also represents "The American Dream" of love, wealth and happiness for all of us.

The Valley of Ashes (the desolate ash-dumping piece of land) represents the moral decay of 20's and the plight of the poor.

The billboard with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg represents the eyes of God looking down on the moral morass which was America in the Jazz Age...and judging it badly.

The unopened, unread books represent the shallowness of the rich who look good from the outside, but have no content within themselves.

The owl-eyed man could be a prophetic reference. Someone who is wise (the owl) and sees more clearly (glasses)  than those around him what is happening to the society.

The colors yellow and gold are used frequently, probably to represent wealth and money of this society. White is used for Daisy often..presumably to represent her femininity and innocence.