The Great Gatsby Research Paper

Emma Brinkworth

Mrs.Kent

English 11A

February 12, 2016

The Great Gatsby Essay

It’s 11:30 on a Sunday night, as the anxious parents await for her arrival. The past nine, turbulent months have all led up to this moment. All the love, preparation, and pain will all soon be paid off in only a couple of brisk moments. Sweating, screaming, and crying, she is brought into this world. A new baby has been born, and as the doctors declare that it is a girl, they wrap her in a pink linen blanket. She is surrounded in a sign of delicacy, femininity, and love. Since our births, colors seem to define us and the complex interweavings our lives. In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author paints the novel with the vibrant, vivacious

This color is commonly known as the color gray. Around half-way between the West Egg territory and New York CIty, lies a town that Nick calls, “the valley of ashes”(23). In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author seems to use gray to display lifelessness, and the lower class people. In chapter two Nick notes that, “...a line of gray cars crawl along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight”(23) This statement displays how the people who live and work in this town almost function robotically, with no life behind their actions. Using the verb “crawl”(23), shows the passiveness behind all of the actions of the people in the town. The valley of ashes displays an atmosphere of anguish, unhappiness, and lifelessness. Whether it be the “gray, scrawny Italian child”, or the “lavender-colored with gray upholstery” furniture, everything in the valley of ashes seems to be touched with the infectious feelings of despair and lifelessness(26-27). This is especially true for the character of George Wilson, who is described as a dull, lifeless man who inhabits this area with his wife, Myrtle. In the novel, Myrtle attempts to break the mold of

In the very beginning of the novel, Nick notes that, “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg…” reside across from his less fashionable home located on West Egg, which is known for new money. Automatically, the reader is given insight that the color whit eis associated with “old money”, and East Egg. The grand home that they reside in, already has been associated with the color white within the first few pages of the novel. After Nick goes to talk with Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Tom begings to speak about this book he is reading called, “The Rise of the Colored Empires”(13). He states that, “if we don’t look out the white race will be utterly submerged”(13). By referring to the “white race”(13) with this connotation, Tom is inferring that he is afraid that people who worked for their money, such as those from other races, will take over their social class. Tom’s statement also associates the color white with a high social class, and “Old Money”. When Nick enters the Buchanan household, he states that, “They [Daisy and Jordan] were both in white…”(8). Yet again, by using the color white, Fitzgerald displays the upper-class, money, and culture. In this specific chapter, Fitzgerald makes it obvious to the reader that these characters had inherited their money, without so much as ever lifting a finger to earn it. They