Have you ever seen an old 1980’s cartoon where a one character gets angry so his face turns a deep shade of red? Or have you seen when a character’s face turns green? Without knowing this information you have been exposed to color symbolism. The red face of this character represents his anger. Similarly, the green face could represent greed or maybe envy. James Gatz, other known as Jay Gatsby, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, encounters many forms of color symbolism through his summer of trying to achieve his dream of marrying the girl of his dreams, Daisy Buchanan. Color symbolism plays an important role throughout the novel. The color gold usually represents wealth and money and in this novel there is no exception. The first example of when the color gold is used in this novel is when Nick, Gatsby’s neighbor, States, “Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine” (Fitzgerald 43). When Nick said this he was speaking of Daisy Buchanan’s best friend Jordan. Although he did not literally mean that she had a golden arm, he meant that he arm was very rich or beautiful. Fitzgerald also was stating that her arm was tanned from being out in the sun during golfing. Her golden arm represents her social class, which was old money (Schneider). Another example of the color gold used as symbol for something else is at Gatsby’s Party that nick is describing when he says, “Turkeys bewitched to a dark gold” …show more content…
The use of color symbolism in The Great Gatsby is a very key and influential piece of the story throughout the entire book. Although Gatsby was never able to completely fulfill his dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, he was able to learn a few lessons along the way like nothing is forever and that the past truly cannot be recreated no matter how hard you try. So from now on every time watch or read something, it doesn’t matter if its from the 1800’s or from present day you will be able to detect and analyze the use of color symbolism throughout the