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Great Gatsby Symbolism Analysis

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The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a novel of triumph and tragedy. The Great Gatsby is written on the society of the 1920s during the time of Fitzgerald. The novel served as a snapshot on the post-war society known as the Jazz Age. The novel brings insight into the life of people during the 1920s. Fitzgerald uses several different forms of symbolism throughout the book to add meaning and emotion. Fitzgerald employs several devices, including color imagery, symbols, and descriptive tags, throughout the novel. Fitzgerald uses colors as one of the forms of symbolism. One of the colors used is yellow. Yellow symbolises wealth and riches and it symbolises old wealth and new riches. Several characters are represented with the color gold. One …show more content…

Jordan Baker was told that she was reckless and a rotten driver. “You’re a rotten driver,” I protested. “Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn’t to drive at all” (Fitzgerald 58). She represents a car well because she was careless, she didn 't care what she did and if she hurt anyone. Jordan and Baker are names of a car company back in the 1900s. This represents her well because her names are car companies. Another character is Owl Eyes. He represents a car because he tells Nick that he had been drunk for a week and moments later crashes his car in front of Gatsby’s house. He is so drunk that when he crashed his car he thought it had just run out of gas. One of Gatsby’s cars is used for murder. Myrtle was hit and was killed by Gatsby 's car outside the garage. Gatsby is then later tracked down by George and is killed because George thought Gatsby had killed Myrtle. Cars also symbolise wealth back in the 1920s. People who thought they were better than others would buy the best looking and expensive cars on the market. Gatsby wants to show off how wealthy he is and uses the car as a symbol of his wealth. There 's an ongoing theme of new money versus old money where Gatsby has been handed his money down from generation and Tom has worked for what he has and was made rich by his own

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Car Symbolism The Great Gatsby is the story of wealthy Jay Gatsby pursuing his fantasized love, Daisy Buchanan. Cars are seen multiple times throughout the novel and play an important role. In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, cars represent the careless wealthy people.

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From the very first page of Fitzgerald's novel, Gatsby spoken in past tense, making readers assume he has passed. Motor cars are associated with violence and potential death, wealth, restlessness, and power. Cars becomes a metaphor to other people that characterizes such careless people who are insulated by their wealth from the reality of others lives. Fitzgerald ends the novel with cars being shown as the cause of death. Nature is an image that Fitzgerald created to show the beauty of things.

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Luxury objects help to establish the theme of the failed American Dream. James E. Miller points out that Gatsby’s car is the cause of Gatsby’s death (119). While Daisy drives Gatsby’s car, she runs over and kills Myrtle Wilson (143; ch. 7). George Wilson finds out the car belongs to Gatsby (178; ch. 9). Wilson goes to Gatsby’s house, and he shoots and kills Gatsby (162; ch. 8).

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The cars mainly represented the wealthy characters, and the American Dream they were living in, showing how they cared about themselves. People today can have the same connections, as we see that fancy cars can still be associated with the rich. Along with that, mansions and big houses can also provide a connection as it is tied to the high social class. The wealthy will most likely have these possessions that are shown in The Great Gatsby. Alongside the connection The Great Gatsby holds, it also has vocabulary that can be easily understood by students.

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Gatsby’s car is a prominent symbol within the book and is used represent wealth and in some instances death. People from all over New York came to marvel at his Rolls-Royce, gleaming tangible proof of his undying wealth. The car is described as gorgeous and marvelous, which is the effect Gatsby intended to have because he originally purchased it to impress his love, Daisy. The reason why it is so symbolic of wealth is because it was Gatsby’s way of proving to Daisy that he had money and a high social class, just as she desired. He drove it around constantly, as it became an “omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight.”

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The car is a bright yellow, big, and flashy. Gatsby uses it in order to hide who he truly is and his past creating a fake version of himself. While on an impetuous act Daisy runs over and kills Myrtle with the same yellow car. Yellow and gold are two different colors with almost the exact same symbolism of

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, tells a story revolving around the life of the wealthy folk. Throughout the book, Fitzgerald describes and involves cars in the plot on several occasions. In The Great Gatsby, cars come to represent the carelessness of the wealthy. The cars’ symbolism first appeared in the novel after Gatsby’s first big party.

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In the aftermath of Myrtle’s death, Nick recalled that “ the ‘death car’ as the newspapers called it, didn't stop it; came out of the gathering darkness wavered tragically for a moment and then disappeared around the next bend,”(144). Before this, the car had already been set up as a symbol for in-authenticity. It represented Gatsby’s desire to be something that Daisy wanted. The desire to be something that would win her affection. The thing is that it was not who he really was.

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This color is used to describe the American dream and the new money of West Egg, but also foreshadows death and sorrow. This can be seen in Gatsby’s car which Nick describes as, “a rich cream color, bright and there in it’s monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns.” (Fitzgerald 33) The car reflects Gatsby`s new money while Toms dull blue colored coupe represents the old money and boredom of East Egg. The death aspect of the color yellow can be seen when Nick Jordan and Tom are headed to town and they stop for gas.

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After knowing the color of the car that hit Myrtle, “out of envy, Tom instigates his mistress’s husband to kill Gatsby, from which we can see his selfishness and cruelty” (Haibing 42). After George Wilson found out that Gatsby ‘supposedly’ killed Myrtle, he went to Gatsby’s mansion and while Gatsby was swimming, George pulled the trigger and murdered Jay Gatsby or James Gatz. In the pool that Gatsby’s body was in, “The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of a compass, a thin red circle in the water” (Fitzgerald 170). Subsequently, George then committed suicide by shooting himself. White represents “the immaculate and pure beauty.

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Gatsby’s dreams and aspirations in life are rather interesting and amazing as he goes about his life in the book. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald helps highlight the social, moral, and political issue that were very present during the 1920’s and today. Gatsby is the focus of the book as before the book began, he was an ex-soldier who came to wealth by some rather illegal ways. Daisy a married woman is his person of interest, who was his ex-lover 5 years before the book started. Gatsby’s actions, and words demonstrate a clear obsession with Daisy that seems to have no end.

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“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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Gatsby’s car as described by Nick, is cream-colored and as Nick says, “Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town.” (Fitzgerald 64). Gatsby’s car is green in remembrance of Daisy. As Gatsby realizes that Daisy left him because he was poor, he starts to earn money in order to impress Daisy and get her back, his car is one of the few examples of

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The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and narrated by a man named Nick Carraway. This novel was written with the intent of showing the readers how morally corrupt the 1920s were. Throughout the novel, characters abandon their moral values for a materialistic lifestyle. The novel depicts a great picture of the roles men and women played in the 1920s. Even with the changing roles of men and women, they continued to rely heavily on whom they were married to and what social class they belonged to.

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The Great Gatsby Showcasing The 1920s. The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald represents all sorts of different lifestyles in the roaring twenties. From rags to riches, there is a character for each category. Throughout the 1920s, America went through drastic changes.

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