Symbolism is the practice of giving objects a representational meaning or representing something other than what it really is. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald we meet Nick Carroway, the novel's narrator. The novel describes the life of Jay Gatsby when Nick meets him. Daisy, Nick's cousin, is married to Tom Buchanan but is Gatsby's love interest. Tom, although he claims to love his wife, has a mistress Myrtle. Myrtle and her husband George Wilson live in the Valley of Ashes. The novel analyzes the lives of Americans, especially Jay Gatsby, in the 1920s. Many of the elements in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby represent something other than what is. One night, when Nick returns home from dinner with his cousin Daisy, her husband, Tom, and their friend Jordan, he sees his neighbor Jay Gatsby outside looking out over the water in the darkness. Nick “involuntarily… look[s] out to sea – and distinguish[es] nothing except a single green light, tiny and distant, which might have been the end of a pier” (Fitzgerald 24). This green light that Nick sees appears to be the light at the end of Daisy's dock, across the water. Green light is used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to symbolize a few different things. Jay Gatsby is a man who has been in love with Daisy since he met her. He is so infatuated with her that he buys the house directly across the sea from hers and throws big extravagant parties, which he doesn't attend himself, in the hope that Daisy will show up at one o'clock. According to James E. Miller Jr's article "On the Meaning of the Novel", the green light "also serves as a symbol for the man hastily pursuing a tempting but ever elusive dream". This dream is the American dream. As stated... midway through the paper... Atsby reclines against the mantelpiece and "his head tilts so far back that it rests on the face of a defunct mantel clock..." (Fitzgerald 86). As stated by Abby Werlock in her article “The Great Gatsby,” “The novel…uses the symbol of a broken watch to demonstrate the folly of believing that one can return to the innocence of the past.” Gatsby wants Daisy to love him again. He thinks he can find a way to repeat the past. Later in the novel Gatsby argues with Nick about how the past cannot be returned or repeated. Being in love with Daisy makes Gatsby believe that he can repeat the past and that if he makes everything right as it once was, he will be able to win Daisy's heart back. Unfortunately Daisy has moved on with her life and is married with a child. Despite this, Gatsby will not give up on returning to the past.