Color in a novel can be helpful to the reader. In the book, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, symbolism of the color gray is used to set the mood and tone of the scenes and appearances some characters. At the beginning of Chapter II, Nick sees “a line of gray cars” that “crawls along an invisible track”(23). As Nick passes the lifeless, industrial part of town, he begins feeling depressed when he sees these dirty cars. The readers start to get an image of the drab, gray color that is reflected in “the valley of ashes”(23). While Nick is still on the train, he observes the zombie-like workers with their tools doing back-breaking work. “[T]he ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades”(23) as they are working in the trenches. The melancholy