What Does The Mansion Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

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Exotic, fascinating, and addicting are just some of many colorful words that could describe Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. This enticing novel has an exceptionally gripping plot and alluring characters. This is due to the language in the novel, however to me one of the most interesting aspects of this story has to be its use of symbols. From the the valley of ashes to the west and east egg, symbols show up everywhere and they are what strike my interest in the novel while also adding depth and charm to it as well. Gatsby's mansion has to be one of the most obvious symbols in the entire book. It serves Gatsby’s character perfectly - grand but empty. Going hand in hand with the meaning of the mansion would have to be the Valley of Ashes. The Valley represents all of the corruption and destruction of people in their journey of chasing wealth. This encompasses Gatsby as it is noted that he illegally distributes alcohol in order to pursue riches. …show more content…

The color green in the novel represents Gatsby hope in stealing Daisy's heart. However this color does have an unfortunate twist because it also represents money and greed. Perhaps Daisy and Gatsby were not striving for each other, but strictly for financial reasons only. This struggle to gain power goes as far as manslaughter, when Daisy accidentally kills Tom's mistress from the Valley of Ashes. During Daisy’s fatal mistake she can be seen driving gatsby's golden car. This color does relate directly to money and wealth, however in this book it also symbolizes death. An analysis of this on Shmoop also adds that “Daisy’s the golden girl” and “Gatsby is wearing a gold tie when he goes to Nick’s house.” The color shows up many times and Gatsby's presence and unfortunately he ends up