Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, known professionally as F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a writer and novelist in America, whose works illustrate the Jazz Age. While he achieved limited success in his lifetime, he is generally recognized as one of the most brilliant American novelists of the 20th century.

The Great Gatsby is considered the most successful masterpiece of Fitzgerald. The story commences with the narrator, Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota going to New York City to be a stockbroker. He quickly gets familiar with Jay Gatsby, key figure and leading role of this fiction.

Gatsby is one of the most wealth men in that region, and he always entertains hundreds of guests at wild parties in his mansion. He was once deeply in love with Nick’s cousin, Daisy, who has already married to another man of wealth, Tom Buchanan. However, Gatsby is obsessed with the idea of reuniting with Daisy. Every night he takes a while to gaze at the green light at the bottom of Tom and Daisy’s house, which is situated across the bay from his manor, expecting that he could resume their lost romance. Gatsby just wants to give Daisy a great impression by showing off his deluxe standard of living and ceaseless gathering, and raising her curiosity about her anonymous neighbor across the bay. And after getting acquainted with Nick, Gatsby persuades him to organize a get-together between himself and Daisy. After this arranged meeting, Gatsby and Daisy start an affair, however, Tom becomes increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby and calls for a meeting of them all sitting together, and claims that he and Daisy’s relationship is what Gatsby could never understand. In addition, he discloses to Daisy that all Gatsby’s wealth stem from unlawful conduct and the brewing industry. What is worse, he is a completely offender. Subsequently, Daisy has found that she had faithfulness on Tom.

On their way back home, Nick finds that Gatsby has hit and killed Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, in a car accident. However, he knows something from Gatsby afterwards that the killer was Daisy, who was steering the vehicle when the incident took place. However, Gatsby is going to carry the blame eventually. On the other hand, Myrtle’s husband George is told by Tom that Gatsby is the driver and the man who has killed Myrtle. In the end of this story, when Gatsby lies in the pool of manor, George finds him and shoots him in his head. Nick schedules a miniature burial for Gatsby in which none of Gatsby’s associates or partygoers attends.

2 Literature Review

2.1 An Introduction of the Symbolism Theory

The concept of “symbol” stands for some profound meaning of a thing. Symbol often has more than one of interpretations in terms of both literal and figurative significance. It ranges from the most obvious and superficial concept of a thing to another, to massive, complex, and perplexing creations. Objectives, people, places, and even instances can be used in a symbolic way.

In addition, symbolism in literature is presented in a profound level. It is a kind of technique in composition to use emblems to symbolize notions or subjects, and the various interpretations of the connotation produced by emblems are essential for the construction of beauty in literatures. In this perspective, the use of symbolism is a way of delivering messages, through which the writer can easily and deeply reveal the psychological activities and conflicts of the character, and make the work full of emotion and imagination. It is undisputed that among those authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of the symbolism is the most exceptional.