The Symbolism in the Novel the Great Gatsby The symbolism of setting expressed by Fitzgerald in the novel The Great Gatsby adds important values to the story. Fitzgerald creates a plot of love, money, society, and success mixed together to show us the values he learned himself. He describes how the dreams of a character relates to understanding the influence of power. There are three main settings: The East Egg, The West Egg, and The valley of Ashes. In these three settings we see different ways Fitzgerald uses color, materialism, and the way society acts in each setting to demonstrate the impact on wealth distribution. Nick begins describing a map view upon the west egg and the East egg in chapter 1(p.5). Fitzgerald utilizes imagery to allow …show more content…
It was where the people that thought they had achieved the American dream lived. Gatsby as our most important example shows us in color. He likes to expose his wealth by having “large parties” where there is live music, alcohol, bright lights, and people from the non-elite and elite social class (p.49). Nick describes to us the preparation toward the party, he mentions how [the juice from two hundred oranges is extracted every week for his parties] implying the measures he takes to make his party extravagant (p.39). Most of the people attending the party are new money and belief to be experiencing the American dream of glamour and wealth. In chapter 7 of the novel when Gatsby wears the pink suit it becomes clearly evident he is not old money and does not belong to the elite class. Tom uses color as symbolism when stating Gatsby as “incredulous” “Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.” there was no way someone from old money like tom would ever wear such a color. (p.122). Gatsby extravagant loud yellow car is also symbolic when describing the West egg. It is a flashy yellow car very noticeable and unique that Gatsby uses to expose his wealth. It was also the tool that caused his ruin, and can be interpreted as the drive of the American dream towards wealth and