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The Great Gatsby Color Imagery Essay

711 Words3 Pages

Trying to impress others by hiding your true self is a trait that thousands of people acquire. A natural want to seem better than others often causes people to fake their behavior and suppress their true colors. It is our colors that define us, but many use other palettes to change the way they appear to the public. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color imagery to illuminate traits and intentions of specific characters. White, silver, and gold are attributed to Daisy to exemplify her front of innocence and effort to hide her immoral nature, while yellow, grey, and brown are ascribed to Myrtle to illustrate her veneer of wealth that tries to cover her poor, despairing lifestyle.
The color white associated with Daisy is a façade of pure innocence and elegance that conceals her true unscrupulous and materialistic character. Inside the Buchanan’s white home, “Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of fans”, appearing as ethereal angels free from sin (Fitzgerald 115). Colors such as white and silver should epitomize a clean, fresh, and graceful being who is honest and pure. However, Fitzgerald uses these connotations as a pretense to mask Daisy’s shallow and selfish ways. Although Daisy may seem at first as fragile and delicate, it is in truth all an act to appear honorable, and to distract …show more content…

Fitzgerald uses the skill of color imagery and their connotations to show how people try to appear to others and hide who they really are inside. The characters in the novel exhibit the truths of human nature and how we try to change our image and behavior to get what we want out of life. Daisy’s attempt at appearing moral and Myrtle’s effort to appear wealthy display how humans falsely transform their virtues and statuses when put against

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