At the end of Chapter 1, Nick returns home and sees Gatsby standing alone, staring at the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He has the impulse to call out to him, but then he decides that Gatsby looks as if he wants to be alone. The green light is symbolic to Gatsby. It represents Daisy and money. Fitzgerald gives us the impression that staring at the green light is like a recurring ritual for Gatsby:
But I didn’t call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling.
In Chapter 7, after Daisy accidentally kills Myrtle with the "death car," Tom and Daisy return to their home. Nick finds Gatsby standing by himself, just outside their house. Gatsby says that he doesn't trust Tom. At this point, Gatsby feels guilty about the accident and he wants to feel as though he is Daisy's protector. Nick leaves him there, standing alone.
He put his hands in his coat pockets and turned back eagerly to his scrutiny of the house, as though my presence marred the sacredness of the vigil. So I walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing.
At the end of Chapter 8, Gatsby is alone just before Wilson shows up. Nick imagines Gatsby, alone, contemplating how his dream of reuniting with Daisy has come to such a tragic end:
He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.
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