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Color Symbolism In The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Generally, most authors use colors as symbols to create a deeper meaning to enhance their work. Most colors come with associations in everyday life. Robert Frank once said, “Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, a rich man named Jay Gatsby tries to get his love back but faces many obstacles while trying to do so. Color symbolism plays an essential role in the novel. He uses the colors white, green, blue, gold/yellow, grey, and red to create deeper meanings to some objects throughout the novel. In the novel The Great Gatsby, the color white symbolizes of “purity” throughout East and West Egg. …show more content…

“You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (Fitzgerald 94). This quotation is said to Daisy by Gatsby showing the deep meaning of the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. The green light gives Gatsby hope because he wants to win back his teenage lover and he thinks it’s a sign that they will one day be together again. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (Fitzgerald 180). Once again, the green light was Gatsby’s hope and somehow his connection with Daisy. “Involuntarily I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock” (Fitzgerald 16). This symbolizes Gatsby’s hope of his dream and life. In conclusion, the color green throughout the novel connects Gatsby to Daisy, giving him …show more content…

“Golden stands for richness but also successful and extremely valuable”(Huber). This generally states how gold is used to symbolize throughout the story. As you can consider new money as being green, old money is gold. This depicts Gatsby from Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who represent gold. “High in the white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl”(Fitzgerald 120). This is revealing Daisy as golden. “With Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine”(Fitzgerald 43). Besides all Jordan’s flaws, this reveals her beauty with golf and her glowing golden arms. “I put around Jordan’s golden shoulder”(Fitzgerald 77). This is also symbolizing Jordan’s beauty ignoring her flaws and mistakes. The color gold then transforms to the color yellow. “Sometimes the gold at Gatsby’s house turns to yellow”(Huber). This quotation explains the richness of Gatsby’s gold turning yellow, which represents a small sensation of happiness. “Now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music” (Fitzgerald 42). Gatsby’s car is also coincidentally yellow which shows how Gatsby is associated with yellow. Therefore, the color gold represents richness and then becomes yellow, which represents a short

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Many colors are used throughout The Great Gatsby to convey the theme. Some of the colors used were gold, white, and green. The first color, gold, was used to show the old money or the real rich. Fitzgerald uses this symbol of gold when describing Jordan Baker’s arm. He says “Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine”(43).

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Fitzgerald uses color to differentiate the social classes of the by describing them with color. In The Great Gatsby Nick states that Daisy is the “Golden Girl…” (120). this description of Daisy shows that she is a girl of money and status because gold has a symbolic meaning of money and wealth. On the other hand Fitzgerald describes the man selling Airedales to Tom as a “Gray old man” (27). Basically what Fitzgerald is suggesting is that the man selling Airedales is a man of a low social status because gray symbolizes depression, and the man is trying to find a way to make money so he can climb the social ladder.

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In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald displays some of the characters in the book being prosperous through the color gold. The color gold symbolizes prosperous, because in The Great Gatsby the color gold serves as wealth and as success. Fitzgerald depicts the color gold as wealth through what the characters in The Great Gatsby have bought, mainly the rich characters in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes of Nick describing Gatsby’s food at Gatsby’s party in

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Nick sees Gatsby 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. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (26). The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is one of the most important symbols in the novel. The light is symbolic of Gatsby’s American Dream; his pursuit of wealth in order to change the past for Daisy. The green light gave Gatsby something to reach for and worship instead of religion.

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The colors yellow and gold are used to symbolize money and power. These colors are used in relation to Gatsby as he strives to achieve money and a high social status to get Daisy to see him. The color green used in the book symbolizes Gatsby’s lifelong dream and goal of getting Daisy. The first time Fitzgerald uses the color is at the end of

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1311 Words | 6 Pages

Thought out the whole novel the color yellow symbolizes Gatsby’s wealth and has something to do with Daisy. Around the world the color yellow usually means happiness and in “The Great Gatsby” the author stated, "now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music" (Fitzgerald 42). Gatsby was having another party to show his money, while the music had a rich tone and the people there felt that the music was soothing. Also in the novel, Fitzgerald mentions, "two girls in twin yellow dresses" (44), and it is to talking about the happiness. The two girls in the yellow dresses are admiring Jordan, the golden girl, and are jealous of how amazing she looks.

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Gatsby aspired to live the American Dream and be with Daisy, but not all books have happy endings. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolism is extensively used to develop themes. Fitzgerald employs the color yellow, the green light, and the social divide between West Egg and East Egg to develop a unique theme for each of them. The color yellow represents various emotions such as joy, optimism, betrayal, hope, and wealth which helps establish the mood in different chapters. Upon arriving at Gatsby’s party, Nick sees Jordan talking to some girls at Gatsby’s party.

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All people want to have is an abundance of money or, the “American Dream”. Zhang Habing explains this throughout his article titled “Symbolic meaning of colors in The Great Gatsby”, “Throughout the novel, it can be seen that the most common color accompanying with Gatsby is yellow… Yellow is the color of gold, which symbolizes money, materialism and high social position.” (p. 42) The dream of all people in any time period present past or future is to have a lot

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Yellow is a paler shade of gold and could be seen as a poor imitation. Indeed, throughout Fitzgerald’s novel he uses the color yellow to represent a desperate attempt to be wealthy. Myrtle Wilson, whom Tom Buchanan is having an affair with, is noted to be wearing yellow several times throughout the novel. Gatsby’s car, which kills Myrtle Wilson and ends up getting Gatsby killed, is yellow, and according to a pie graph in Samkanashvili’s color analysis of the novel, the color yellow just barely edges green out as being the color most assosciated with Gatsby. If yellow represents a “fake gold”, then the reader can interpret the association of Gatsby with yellow with his attempt to be the Buchanans, the “old money.”

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This color is mentioned many times as it, “symbolizes money, materialism and high social position”. A major way this is shown in the book is when the two Eggs are described in the book because, “gold is used in the book to symbolize old wealth and new riches” (Olesen). East Egg is said to be the home of the families who have had money for a while or have inherited it from relatives while West Egg is where families of recently acquired money live. With these two different places already put in place at the beginning of the book, money and social position is very important and the color gold represents it well. In relation to the wealth of West Egg and East Egg, “Gatsby is hopeful that he can win over Daisy with [his] power of money” (Olesen).

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494 Words | 2 Pages

Regardless of the distance, Gatsby’s continues to persevere, demonstrating optimism and hope. Another important color in The Great Gatsby is yellow. The color yellow portrays the materialism and wealth of the characters. Gatsby’s mansion is described as “a tower” and is a key example of wealth. “...it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.

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The color symbolism in The Great Gatsby is represented by the colors green, pink, and black. The color green is represented by the light at the end of the dock in The Great Gatsby. “possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of the green light…”(Fitzgerald 93). The green light means a lot to Jay Gatsby it represents what he wants and what he has.

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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.

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854 Words | 4 Pages

“It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory we started to town.” (68). The color yellow is to symbolise wealth in the novel. This describes how lavish, eye catching and extravagant Gatsby’s car is and how it is meant to catch your attention when you look at it.

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, color symbolism is used to reveal important character traits and create a variety of moods throughout chapters 1-4. Fitzgerald incorporates the color white to demonstrate the virginal purity and initial innocence of some of the characters. He also uses this symbolism of the color white to differentiate between social classes. Fitzgerald then affiliates the colors gray and yellow with the dismal corruption that engulfs the novel. To tie everything together, he develops a pattern of the color green to portray how Gatsby’s world revolves around a greedy, yet romanticized dream, only attainable through money.

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