Color In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Colors play a huge role in our everyday lives, colors can change our emotions and moods without us even realizing it. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the author uses symbolism often throughout the novel to show and explain the many different feelings and emotions. In this novel, a young man wants to reconnect with a girl from his past, but his plans didn't go as he wanted. Overall, Color symbolism plays an essential role in the novel. Two colors used often in this novel are gold and yellow. Gold and yellow symbolize wealth, happy times for example, like the golden days or golden age, success, and valuable times, like a golden opportunity. Gatsby was very wealthy and at a party of his Nick said, "..turkeys bewitched to a

He uses green to symbolize hope and old age. In the novel he said, "I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light" (Fitzgerald 25). Here, he has hope of reaching Daisy’s dock on the other end of the water and hope of achieving his goal in following the American dream. Many nights Gatsby looked out onto the water and saw "Now it was again a green light on a dock" (Fitzgerald 90). Then he realized this dock belonged to Daisy. "...when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock" (Fitzgerald 171). The green light showed that gatsby had hope and that he could do anything he put his mind to. Later, the water all the way between Gatsby’s and Daisy’s became green. "On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat,.." (Fitzgerald 112). Then Gatsby truly showed his hope and trust in the green light across the water, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us" (Fitzgerald 171). This shows that gatsby believes the green light to follow the American dream and it has a significant meaning and gave him hope. However, at one point in the novel, Fitzgerald didn't use green to symbolize hope, here green symbolizes jealousy or envy. George Wilson said "In the sunlight his face was green" (Fitzgerald 117). The symbolism here the author shows the envy George sees in the face of a man by using the color

Sometimes he uses the color pink and says "the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon" (Fitzgerald 136). Here, gatsby describes his suit and the luminosity as if it is glowing under the moonlight. Also when Gatsby and Daisy are finally together he says "there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea" (Fitzgerald 91). The author uses the color pink her to show the love that gatsby and Daisy have as they finally get together. Using this symbolism shows that their love is radiating and that they have happiness and joy while together. He also uses the color red while describing the inside of buchanan’s home. He said, "We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space" (Fitzgerald 13). This room they walked into was the crimson room which he described as "Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light" (Fitzgerald 22). The room was glowing with light which infers that the author used red to describe the crimson room because it was a room full of joy and