The color white is one of the many symbols used throughout “The Great Gatsby”. It symbolizes both the purity and innocence of something. It has been used in society and in the novel “The Great Gatsby.” It has also put more meaning into the readers’ experience. The color white has shown a great significance in society and within the novel which helps make the experience for the readers more meaningful.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the colors green, red, and white throughout the novel to show symbolism that relates to the theme of the novel, the American Dream. The use of the colors are significant because each color symbolizes something different.
Gold and money, a light in the dark, or a warning on the road; the color yellow has many diverse meanings in society and these are just a few. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald colors represent several aspects of the characters as they are swept through rollicking emotions powered by the mystery shrouding the enigmatic Jay Gatsby in the height of the Roaring Twenties. Yellow gives insight into Gatsby’s character, who he wants to be, who he is in truth, and who others think he is.
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.
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 The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, one of the characters is “stuck in the past”. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is constantly longing for a past relationship he had with a woman named Daisy, who moved on from Gatsby and married another man when Gatsby left for the war. Gatsby’s view of the past is used to develop a major theme of the novel: the moral decay of society.
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.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, deploys color symbolism in order to further develop characters and the plot. Fitzgerald’s use of color symbolism within The Great Gatsby not only defines the characters but adds depth to them. The most recognized color within the novel is “the single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (26). In addition to the green light, there are many other colors within the novel that embody characters, objects, and ideas. The most significant and memorable colors, other than green, are white and yellow, both of which are intertwined in Fitzgerald’s fictional world of materialism and scandal. The colors white, yellow, blue, and green shape the novel’s characters and plot, resulting in a vivid story of love and blind pursuance.
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
Arguably one of the most complex works of American Literature, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald displays a satirical United States taking place in the early twenties in New York. The roaring twenties often portrayed a happy time immediately following World War 1 however, it gave off a false feeling of joy and many people were truly unhappy. Even though Nick Carraway shows a realistic image of himself, The Great Gatsby encompasses an illusion created in this time period and portrays this image through the atmosphere surrounding the actions of its characters; it ultimately shows a conflict against reality, identical to that to the early 20th century.
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
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.
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). In the beginning of the book, we do not know what this green light means, but by the end of the story it goes to show it signifies Gatsby longing for Daisy’s love. Gatsby and Daisy used to date before he left for the war. Now that he is back and has found her, he wants her back. His arm being reached out represents his trying to reach his dreams. In Schneider’s essay on The Great Gatsby, he states: “…green, as the mixture of yellow and blue is once again tragic commingling of dream and reality. Gatsby, seeking
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald exhausts numerous colors throughout the novel to demonstrate different aspects of the changing times. He associates colors like yellow, white, blue and gray with certain characters as well as specific topics in the novel. The color gray is associated with the character Jordan Baker as well as with the topics of moral and sexual ambiguity. Fitzgerald also demonstrates the use of color psychology in The Great Gatsby, thus causing the audience to acknowledge perceptions of those colors.
In both The Great Gatsby, Daisy is Gatsby’s final piece of his reincarnation. She is the one who would complete his climb up the ladder of society. Likewise, Judy enacts this role for Dexter in Winter Dreams. “The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he...tried to bring up a picture of the waters on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck’s soft down...Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.” (Winter Dreams 9). When Dexter discovered that Judy had gotten married, he felt like all his dreams were gone. He associated his dream of wealth and luxury with Judy. So, when she was no longer available to him, he felt as if his fantasies were out-of-reach as well. “The windows were ajar and gleaming white…the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling…They were both in white…” (The Great Gatsby 8). When we first meet Daisy, she is surrounded by the color white. This theme continues throughout the book. The color white, in this story, represents money and wealth. Daisy was a very wealthy girl and came from “old money.” Old money was exactly what Gatsby needed to completely fit into society. If one were to look closely at the two characters, they would see that there are many more likenesses between