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What Does Green Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

942 Words4 Pages

Kathryn Field
Di Cristina & Easbey
English 11 / 4
25 April 2023
Green Symbolism Throughout The Great Gatsby
What deeper symbolism did we miss in F. Scott Fitzgerald´s romance-fiction novel The Great Gatsby? Color is often a storytelling tool that escapes us at first glance and in this story, green is one of the recurring colors of symbolism in the novel. It alludes to plot points, problems, character traits, and settings we see unfold throughout the book. Through his profound commentary, Fitzgerald enhances the concept of the American dream by comparing how it has evolved and modern elements like classism that have affected its perception through the color green. It is often associated with greed, abundance, jealousy, envy, opportunity, and …show more content…

¨I went with them out to the veranda. On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat, one small sail crawled slowly toward the fresher sea. Gatsby’s eyes followed it momentarily; he raised his hand and pointed across the bay. ‘I’m right across from you.’ ‘So you are.´¨ (Fitzgerald 125). Prior to this quote, Gatsby was looking around Tom and Daisy's house as he saw their daughter Pammy. Which to him was a shock as Daisy´s life has changed in 5 years being a complication in his plan. The green sound being stagnant in the heat demonstrates how Gatsby sees Daisy's life compared to her past as abruptly changed and a snag in his plan. When Gatsby points out that he is just across the bay from them he is jealous of their life and is subtly threatening how he is slowly moving in on their life literally and figuratively. He envies Tom for his money, house, and Daisy, like the life he envisions for himself and …show more content…

¨eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; ¨ (Fitzgerald 192-193). How green is paired with the new world, how it seemed like a new horizon and a bright light to Gatsby´s future as it was for the Dutch sailors. Fitzgerald compares the early beginnings of America and the Dutch sailors' hope to the significance of the green trees vanishing as the American dream is being diminished. How the trees that once stood like the American Dream ideals of a promised land went with them. Gatsby building his house in west egg new money on where the trees stood showed he was a firm believer of the dream, but his fortune was built on

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