What Does The Color Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, a novel of many symbolic aspects, depicts different social classes and sentiments through the use of shades and colors. The color-symbolism is shown through F. Scott Fitzgerald’s use of contrast with dark and light colors. From the settings to the characters, colors are always conveying deeper meanings behind personalities, settings, and themes. The light colors, yellows and white, are often used to describe the wealthy characters. Daisy’s style, composed mostly of white and yellow combinations, symbolizes innocence and wealth, which is the character she wants to be represented as. The vast obsession with materialism is prominent to why these colors symbolize the wealthy, but also corruption that stems from it. On the other

Each color provides an understanding corresponding to each and every one of the characters true personality, as well as the underlying meaning behind a specific setting, but the most important aspect is how a singular color can have contrasting themes that evolve throughout the novel.

Daisy Buchanan is the pure image of “perfection” in the novel and during this time period. The author's use of the color white on Daisy depicts her image of being an idolized wealthy woman. The color white is used to represent purity, innocence, and beauty. The character of Daisy Buchanan is often associated with the color white when she is first introduced wearing a white dress, and her voice is described as "full of money... that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it... high in a white palace, the king's daughter, the golden girl."(Fitzgerald 120). She is always imaged in bright colors. Daisy “was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth” (Fitzgerald 6). The constancy of her image being corresponded with white, or light colors in general that are associated with affluence and perfection, is the symbolism that Fitzgerald is trying to portray with the use of this color.

Primarily the color green “is traditionally associated with spring, hope, and youth. However, one possible meaning of green is envy. Gatsby can be seen as an envious, jealous character.” (Samkanashvili 31). Green is a large symbol when viewing the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock that Gatsby often looks at. This act of him staring off into the distance at this green light symbolizes the hope he has to develop a future with Daisy. Nick recaps in the novel that he “was not alone-fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion … he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way … a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock” (Fitzgerald 22). Both the use of the “dark water” and “single green light” symbolize Gatsby's longing for his ideal life with Daisy and his pursuit of the american dream. In this case, the dark water is meant to exhibit the pain that Gatsby feels while he is separated from Daisy, the woman he loves, and the green light is meant to exhibit his hope for a future with Daisy despite the obstacles he will face. This singular green light becomes one of the most prominent symbols in the whole novel. Green “ is used to emphasize his desire and his unfulfilled wish to win his love Daisy back. As he has already achieved everything in life concerning material success, wealth and power, Gatsby’s