The characters, Jordan, Gatsby, and Tom portrayed in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, have association to colors that implement deeper meanings to the characters.
Color plays an integral role in our lives, it make us feel emotions and we associate it with specific object and themes. For example, a dark cold blue color could make you feel sad or lonely, while a bright sunny orange could create a pleasant warm sensation. An excellent example of how color is used to show themes and progress elements of a story is in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald brilliantly links colors with representative categories and manipulates them to show how the story progresses. He splits them into categories such as lifelessness, false purity, illusion, corruptness, death, and the American dream. In the literary novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color to express emotions and
In the book “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, colors have been used to represent the character’s unapparent and underlying thoughts, feelings, status and class. Through the motif of colors, Fitzgerald depicts the feelings of the character as he refers to a specific color while describing each one of them. The colors make a deep impact on the readers as they contain a profound meaning throughout the novel. There are around five main colors in the novel appearing frequently: white, yellow, green, blue and grey, which help the novel look more gaudy and idealistic.
Fitzgerald uses color to add mod and symbolize different things throughout the novel. The novel uses many different colors to provide imagery for the readers to understand and to live as if they are truly in the novel.
The typical colors of a daisy are white and yellow- white petals with a yellow center. Similarly, Daisy is portrayed as “the white flower- with a golden center” (Color Symbolism 248). She appears to be innocent and pure, such as in Gatsby’s fantasy world, yet deep inside is corrupted and influenced by money. Gatsby is unaware of her golden center, only seeing her pure facade. However, Nick is fully aware of her superficial nature, noting that her voice is “full of money” (127) and that she is “the king’s daughter, the golden girl”
The symbolism of the color white appear several times in the book. But, there was one scene that stood out. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the color of white in the scene where Nick is visiting Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald described what happens when Nick was going on a trip with Gatsby in his car, “-only half, for as we twisted among the pillars of the elevated I heard the familiar “jug-jug-spat!” of a motor cycle, and a frantic policeman rode alongside. “All right, old sport,” called Gatsby. We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet he waved it before the man’s eyes. “Right you are,” agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. “Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse me!” (72). This scene shows how Gatsby is driving
The color grey often symbolizes dull and lifeless characteristics or a state of depression. During the 1920s people in the working class were described as “grey” as they chased their goals they could never achieve. The Great Gatsby is a story of people who try to gain and reach success in a world where social classes vary significantly. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the color grey in both characters and settings to portray the disillusionment of the American Dream through his characters' corrupt ambitions and amoral behavior.
In holding with the ideal of the American Dream, almost every child grows up with his or her parents wanting him or her to be better than they are and they long for their child to achieve and have more. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby wants better for himself. In this novel Gatsby longs to rekindle his relationship with Daisy Buchanan. Colors are used in the novel to represent some form of the American dream and show how corruption leads to destruction.
White is associated with innocence and purity. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes Daisy with the word white to represent her innocence and girlhood many times. When we first meet Daisy, she is with Jordan and “they [are] both in white,” (Fitzgerald 10) in “a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion,” (Fitzgerald 9) surrounded in a pure, white room. Right from the beginning of the novel, Daisy is portrayed as a virtuous woman. She says her “white girlhood [with Jordan] was passed together [in Louisville]. [In her] beautiful white” (Fitzgerald 22) girlhood, “she dressed in white, and had a little white roadster” (Fitzgerald 80). This describes Daisy when she was eighteen years old, when she was in the prime time of her youth. White is used to convey her innocent childhood years. It also describes how she is
In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Firzgerald, Nick Carraway represents the qualities of the green color. He is curious, calm and collected, intelligent, and describes others meticulously. Nick observes the other characters actions and judges them based off of those in precise ways. Nick also possesses qualities from the blue color because of how everyone confides in him. Nick is the first person that everyone goes to when they need to talk.
In everyday life and works of literature, color can symbolizes a wide variety of emotions from moods to political views. When someone is feeling upset one often says “I’m feeling blue” or when someone is mad their face turns red giving that color the association with anger. Political status even uses color to represent each party, one is usually either a blue Democrat or red Republican. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby color plays a significant role throughout the story symbolizing emotions and social rankings. Colors such as green representing hope and money, grey portraying hopelessness, discontent, and low social class, and yellow exemplifies destruction and desire.
Color is everywhere. Although color may not seem important, they might have a greater, deeper meaning. Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is set back in the Roaring 20’s, when the economy was booming. A newly rich man named Jay Gatsby is one of the richer people in this time that enjoys his money. He throws overgenerous parties, hoping that the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan, attends. Gatsby’s life is filled with various colors which signify the messages Fitzgerald is trying to convey. Color symbolism plays an important role through the novel, The Great Gatsby.
The Writer painter and designer Johannes Itten said, “Color is life; for a world without color appears to us as dead. Colors are primordial ideas the children of light.” Fitzgerald decided to use many colors in the novel The Great Gatsby. He used many colors and each color had a special meaning. The special meaning is focused more as a theme that is involved threw out the novel. Some of the colors have similar meanings to each other as well. Out of all the colors Fitzgerald uses, he favors white above them all.
The director of The Great Gatsby Luhrmann conveys that money won’t buy you the things that matter in life like a happiness, true love or power; money will only buy you boisterous parties, expensive clothing, and fancy cars. Luhrmann conveys this through set and color throughout The Great Gatsby .
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the colour green as a symbol to show how modern America has strayed from the moral code of the country and in doing so, has become obsessed with wealth. He does this by comparing Gatsby to Dutch colonists. This is because for both Gatsby and the Dutch colonists in the 1610’s, green was a representation for what they want most in their lives. In the fifth chapter, Fitzgerald developes this symbolism when he writes, “‘You always have a green light that burns at the end of your dock.’ Daisy put her arm through his abruptly… Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever” (92-93). This is saying that the green light represents what Gatsby desires most, Daisy, and that now Gatsby has Daisy’s love