Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

Time is a concept that no one can escape from that constantly moves and influences every action someone might make. In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby is a character who is always trying to change time and even travel back to his past in hopes to restore his desires with the woman he loves. In fact, the concept of time itself is mentioned at least 478 times in the novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the strategic personality of Jay Gatsby to represent that idolizing and living in the past will only result in failure because time does not stop no matter the circumstance. By referencing Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship with the past, symbolism through color, and the motif of a clock, he makes it clear that being stuck in the past

Scott Fitgereld not only makes his claim of the inevitability of time through his characters, but he uses the motif of different colors to represent the failure of living in the past. For example, Daisy is a wealthy and seemingly innocent girl and is therefore attached to the color white. She is described in the book, “Daisy’s white face” (110). When Nick is talking about Daisy, he describes the scene as, “Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans” (115). Fitzgeral uses the color white at least 49 times throughout the novel to portray Daisy’s character to show the purity and happiness of her in her wealth. In the end of the book, it is known that Daisy moves on with time and continues living her life. On the other hand, Gatsby is more associated with the color blue, especially towards his last moments. When his fancy parties occur, his house is described as, “blue gardens” (43), a “blue lawn”(193), with “blue leaves” (162). Not only this but when Gatsby decides to go into his pool moments before his death it states, “Gatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool…He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky” (172). Throughout the entirety of the book, blue is known to represent sadness and loneliness and even failure and with Gatsby, blue also represents his illusions and fantasies. What is ironic about Gatsby’s death is the fact that the color blue surrounded him,

This definite fact of how time works backs up the claim Fitzgerald makes. Knowing that time cannot be controlled by a human makes Gatsby’s case so harmful to himself because he thinks he has the ability to control the impossible and the outcome of his life showing this fatal mistake of living life for one thing truly was. One might say that it was good for Gatsby to be aware of his past and want to remember it. Daisy is someone who ran from her past yet still made mistakes in her present as well. While this case is true, one should be aware of their past to avoid what has already happened yet not live a life trying to control what has already happened. While both of these arguments suffice, Fitzgerald makes it clear in the character development of both Daisy and Gatsby that it is good to be somewhere in the middle of both of these characters. Showing the different sides of how to view time allows the reader to find a middle ground between the two. It is good to be aware of the past and comfortable with it but it is dangerous to live only in the past as the results shown with Gatsby are