Essay On The Color Green In The Great Gatsby

The legendary artist Pablo Picasso once said, “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” A color can represent many things, this representation is called symbolism. Symbols are concrete objects, like a color, that illustrate an abstract idea. In The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway, tells about a prosperous young man who lives in a morally corrupt society. His name is Jay Gatsby, and he has made it his goal to leave his deprived lifestyle behind in the Midwest and move onto the booming wealth associated with New York City. By doing this Gatsby is one step closer to reuniting with Daisy Buchanan, a charming socialite, who used to be head-over-heels in love with Gatsby before he left

The color green is mostly associated with Gatsby. It symbolizes his new wealth, and inexhaustible hope. Gatsby’s money has bought him many things including his house and his car. When Nick is first describing Gatsby’s house he describes it as, “spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy” (Fitzgerald 5). Also when Nick is in Gatsby’s car he describes it as “sitting down behind layers of glass in a sort of green leather” (Fitzgerald 64). The things Gatsby has bought are mostly associated with the color green which represents the money Gatsby has earned to buy these things and impress Daisy

Nick is looking across his lawn and sees Gatsby staring across the water looking at “nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock” (Fitzgerald 21). This green light becomes an important symbol throughout the novel The Great Gatsby. The green is said to represent the hope and dream Gatsby has at a reunion with Daisy. (Samkanashvili) All Gatsby wants in his life is to be back with Daisy, he tries everything he can to get her to find him again, including buying a mansion across the bay from her and buying other luxuries to prove he is worthy to live in the “old money” lifestyle. The green light, which belongs to Daisy, is “the promise of the dream Gatsby pursues” (Schneider). However even though the light represents the dream of his reunion it also symbolizes the tragic reality that Daisy is not his. (Samkanashvili) Lastly at the end of the book, in Nick’s final remarks he explains what he believed Gatsby saw in the green light, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter, tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther” (Fitzgerald 180). Therefore green symbolizes Gatsby’s dream, and his money, and his hope at reuniting with