Looking Green, Old Sport
In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a love story is portrayed including Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. While Daisy is a well-rounded lady that grew up in a higher class environment, Gatsby had to work extremely hard to achieve the wealth he acquired. He transformed his life into one he felt would impress her the most. Everything he did was always for her. Fitzgerald uses the color green to represent Gatsby’s immense love for Daisy, and the progression of his dreams regarding his past flame for their future together.
When someone experiences true love, the feeling overpowers their entire being. Drastic measures may be taken in an effort to preserve the feeling for as long as possible. Green often
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For Jay Gatsby, the color green represented Daisy and his dreams about someday being hers again. He moves to West Egg, holding a party each and every night in hopes his love would walk through the door (78). Soon after, Nick notices a man on his dock with his “arms towards the dark water in a curious way” while “nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been as the end of a dock” (20-21). Gatsby held his arms out in the direction of the green light that belongs to the dock of Mrs. Daisy Buchanan, like he was dreaming of her coming back into his arms. Therefore, the green light represents unrequited love that only becomes reality during Gatsby’s dreams about who he wants Daisy to be. Jay Gatsby let his love for Daisy transform his entire life. One day, before the arranged meeting between the past lovers, Gatsby sent Daisy flowers that “were unnecessary, for at two o’clock a greenhouse arrived from Gatsby’s” (84). The greenhouse represents incubation. For years Gatsby has kept all of his love for Daisy inside of him, like a greenhouse can trap in heat for flowers and plant life to grow. Furthermore, Gatsby’s greedy nature, represented by the color green, helped him build his fortune in hopes of pulling the love of his life back to
Throughout the book, and especially emphasized in the last page, is the idea that green is full of hope for the future. The green light that Gatsby gazes out at represents his dream of life with Daisy. On the last page, the “fresh, green breast of the new world” is mentioned, full of hope for the people landing their ships on the east coast centuries ago. Even the green interior of Gatsby’s car, earlier in the book, promotes this symbolism, as Gatsby has been hanging on to hope for the future, keeping this inside his flashy yellow exterior for so long. But for his hope to become reality, he must first overcome the hopelessness in his way.
F. Scott Fitzgerald used multiple colors as symbols in The Great Gatsby, which added visual elements and allowed for more insight. Each symbol represented both a positive and negative side. One of the major symbols was the color green. Green not only represented hope, but also wicked desires. It developed throughout the novel, along with Gatsby’s situation.
Gatsby lives in West Egg, while Daisy and her husband live in East Egg. When Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby stand together in Gatsby’s house, he states, “‘If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay [...] You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock’” (Fitzgerald 92). When Gatsby speaks to Daisy about the “green light,” this image represents his “burn[ing]” passion for her, and consequently reveals how she symbolizes old money and the epitome of the American Dream for Gatsby.
The first theme that the color green relates to is love. Before going to war, Jay Gatsby fell in love with Daisy Buchanan. Unfortunately, Gatsby was sent off to fight when the war began. Daisy promised Gatsby that she would wait for him; however, she ended up marrying another man by the name of Tom Buchanan. Tom, Daisy's husband, was one of the wealthiest men in the country.
The use of green in relation to Gatsby’s love for Daisy has a few interpretations. One possible meaning of the green light is that it represents hope and the future. At the end of the novel, Nick tells us that, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (182). Gatsby believed that the green light represented a future life with Daisy. Nick does not exactly refute this claim, but seems to have less hope in the future, saying that “It eluded us then, but that’s no matter” (182).
Chasing your Dreams Is there a deeper meaning to using colors to describe something? Most people do not pick up or pay close enough attention as to what colors may mean or what they signify when they are being used in a novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of many different colors throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby allows the readers to think about the deeper, more significant meaning behind the different colors in relation to when, where, and how they are all brought up. Fitzgerald’s emphasis on the green light throughout the novel plays a large role in relation to Gatsby and Daisy.
The green light provides this dream of a life that he could have with Daisy. The green light embodies connection. The symbol represents and gives Gatsby's desire for a relationship and connection with Daisy. The novel says, “ I could have sworn he was trembling.
The colors white, yellow, blue, and green shape the novel’s characters and plot, resulting in a vivid story of love and blind pursuance. As mentioned earlier, the color green is one of the most recognized colors symbolically. The color green symbolizes future, or the American dream, and is most associated with Gatsby himself. This is what Gatsby is pursuing throughout the novel until he tragically perishes, his dream never becoming a reality.
The Great Gatsby is an extremely successful novel that was written by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. The story revolves around Nick Carraway, the narrator and one of the main characters. The story also focuses on Jay Gatsby. Nick’s affluent neighbor who often throws large parties at his mansion. The Great Gatsby is based on the idea of the American Dream; it is a belief that with sufficient work ethic, one can accomplish most, if not all of their goals.
(Will pg.6). Gatsby has hope that the green light will eventually come to Daisy’s attention and that she will fall in love with him again. Jay Gatsby has a deep blind love for Daisy. Though the two have a long lost relationship from five years ago, Gatsby still wants to regain his relationship back with her.
The green light is used to represent multiple things. The first thing it represents is Gatsby’s desire, his dream which is Daisy. To win Daisy would help Gatsby accomplish his American dream. The first time the green light is seen in the novel is when Nick sees Gatsby for the first time, Fitzgerald describes it as, "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.
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. In the novel, the color green detonates Gatsby’s hopes and dreams, but in other characters it represents envy, jealously, and money. When Nick returns home from his cousins house, he spotted Gatsby outside on his dock: “—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way…I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing but a green light, that might have been at the end of a dock” (Fitzgerald 21).
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald continuously references a green light that Gatsby keeps on reaching for. The green light was significant by representing the theme of greed, being a symbol of Gatsby’s desire for Daisy, and serves as a motif for the American Dream. The color green in itself already illustrates the idea of greed and money. Gatsby already has everything anyone could dream for counting a house in West Egg, fame, and fortune, but still he is chasing after this light or in other words, chasing after the love of his life, Daisy. The light is a literary metaphor for Daisy since during the novel, once Gatsby reunites with Daisy the light begins to fade and reframes from reaching out for it.
The color green has its own significance in the novel, as it is mainly attached to Gatsby. The color green is usually attached with nature as in rebirth of spring, growth, wealth, hope and envy. Green embodies Gatsby’s dream and the perpetual pursuit of it. The green color is visited by the reader for the very first time through the element of the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock.
This shows the deep desire to have a better life. In comparing the use of green in “The Great Gatsby” and the description of how green appears to most humans it’s obvious to see how Fitzgerald uses this color for envy and