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What Does The White Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

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In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, symbolism such as color, the valley of ashes, and the green light are abundantly used to convey a deeper meaning throughout the text. Color is used throughout the essay in order to describe personalities and themes throughout the novel. For example, Daisy is symbolically shown through a variety of white items. Her car, her clothes, and the rooms of her house are all examples of this. Her "white neck," "white girlhood," the king's daughter "high in a white palace”, are other examples of how Daisy is repeatedly shown as white. When pondering the symbolic meaning of the color white, it is evident that most would believe Daisy must be “pure” and “innocent”. However, this is not the case. Whilst psychologically analyzing Daisy’s behavior throughout the book, she is seen as selfish and destructive to others …show more content…

The light is symbolic of Gatsby’s hopes and dreams throughout his life. In the beginning, Gatsby states to Nick that he can “change the past”. In a physical example, he moved into a home directly across from Daisy, with the green light visible. The green light, however, is merely that. It is an artificial agent that stimulates sight. This being said, although the light may have seemed close and easy to acquire, it was still just a light; Gatsby’s dreams were merely dreams, unobtainable, unrealistic dreams. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—-So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The green light however, despite initial thought, is not only Gatsby’s dreams. It is humanity’s dreams. As humans, we strive to obtain the unobtainable. Each and every one of us have our own green light at the end of the

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In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald the colors white, black, red, and gold are heavily used throughout the novel to show purity, impurity, love, death, and greed of Daisy’s character. At the beginning of the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays Daisy as pure and innocent through the use of the color white. The novel goes on to explain, “They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house” (Fitzgerald 8). In this instance, white is used to represent purity, that’s why this quote in the novel gives the reader the emotion of purity by portraying a scene in which everything is elegant and tranquil. Towards the end of the story, black becomes Daisy’s main

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Nick’s American Dream was the opposite of Gatsby’s; he always strived to see and do new things every day, constantly reaching for the future, while Gatsby only wanted to relive his past with Daisy. Once Nick feels like there is nothing left for him to discover in New York, he moves back west to rediscover the lost excitement after Gatsby’s death. Nick also believed that Gatsby was foolish in his American Dream because it was unattainable. Nick uses imagery to illustrate the appeal of West Egg before Gatsby’s death, describing the illusions of “those gleaming, dazzling parties”, stating that he could “still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant” (Fitzgerald 179).

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Quotation Analysis I have identified two symbols in the novel written by Fitzgerald. One symbol is white clothes in which Daisy dressed up daily. The quotes “She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster...” and, “ Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans.”

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1311 Words | 6 Pages

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, symbolism is very important all throughout it. Not only does he use objects to show symbolism, but he also uses color symbolism to prove the importance of the theme and development of the characteristics in the Great Gatsby. Color symbolism brings out the visual of the story, so readers can picture it in their mind as they are reading. Fitzgerald took the colors to an advanced level by using key colors to help further deepen the meaning of the book and its characters. Although there are many colors in the novel, Fitzgerald uses the colors green, white, and yellow to symbolize Gatsby’s emotions and riches.

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1211 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the world color is often used in a variety of ways to represent different ideas and traits. People use color to express how they feel, what they are like, and how they view their surroundings. Many people use color to represent feelings such as red for love and yellow for happiness. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway, befriends his wealthy neighbor, Jay Gatsby who is stuck in the past. Throughout the book, Gatsby tries to meet up with his past lover, Daisy Buchanan, who is married at the time to Tom Buchanan.

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1221 Words | 5 Pages

So Green is represented as hope, serenity, or longing, and this represents Gatsby’s endless goal to once again be with his love. The green light is a very important point in the book because of the representation it expresses and the point it gets across,“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (pg.180).

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1416 Words | 6 Pages

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (180). The green light represents the Spring Equinox of the vegetation myth, because the bright green color originally represented the renewal of Gatsby’s life with Daisy. Gatsby wants to recreate the time he had with Daisy. However, this representation changed. Throughout the novel, the green light evolved to represent the unattainability of Gatsby’s American Dream with Daisy.

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860 Words | 4 Pages

She is a counter to the dark, poor, and corrupt Valley of the Ashes. Even though white has been used to convey holiness and sanctitude, the color is also a symbol for the deep emptiness and lack of meaning which plagues the lives of the upper class- especially Daisy. White in one sense is timeless and unblemished, but from Fitzgerald’s perspective white is also devoid of all color. It is hollow and lacking of any true value. This reflects entirely on the utter careless in which Daisy and Tom live; Nick says that Tom and Daisy are “careless people… they [smash] up things and creatures and then [retreat] back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever… and let other people clean up the mess they [have] made” ().

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633 Words | 3 Pages

Our beautiful white-” (Pg.24). The color white is pure and flawless which describes most children or early teens during the time setting. Describing her early life, Daisy uses the color white to symbolize how innocent and pure she once was. Daisy remembers the past because she isn’t the pure and innocent little girl anymore.

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495 Words | 2 Pages

White symbolizes purity and innocence but later in the novel it turns into false purity and innocence. Fitzgerald used “white” often when Nick arrived at Tom and Daisy's house for the first time, “The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house”(Fitzgerald 8), this sentence also connects the color green with daisy by saying the grass seemed to grow a way into the house. In chapter 1, Fitzgerald describes Daisy in an innocent way, “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget … hour” (Fitzgerald 9). The thought of white being pure eventually turned into false purity, the characters were not actually pure and innocent. For example, when Gatsby wanted to meet Daisy for the first time in five years, “he wore a white suit as if to show that he was good and pure, when in reality he was not” (Wallace).

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387 Words | 2 Pages

As long as the light still shines, their connection will never be lost. The green light represents Gatsby’s dreams and aspirations for the future. Just as Gatsby’s green light is significant to him, my green light plays an important role in my life. My dream is to go to the United States Air Force Academy, and my green light, or hopes of my future, plays a key part in providing

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930 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby realizes that his dream has always been present and he is now so close to making his dream a reality. The green light shows once again as the narrator states, Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (Fitzgerald, 180). After Gatsby’s death, Nick reflects on the green light and Gatsby's dream. The green light was once a symbol of hope, but is now corrupted and doomed by the social environment of the

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854 Words | 4 Pages

The color of white symbolizes corruption as in the example of Gatsby showing the policeman a white card to not get in trouble. The color of yellow symbolizing wealth as represented with Gatsby’s luxurious car which shows how wealthy he is. And, the color green symbolizes the future as it symbolizes the future and dream because of Gatsby’s wanted dream/future he wanted with Daisy as the green light is at her house. So in conclusion, the symbolism of color in the book is a major part of the novel and there are many other colors in the novel that have symbolism like gray, silver or gold, but these colors stood out the most in The Great

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

The green light in Gatsby 's case, is his hopes to charm Daisy and be with her forever. Nick had referred to it as being a hopeless future that is possible only in our dreams, which drifts further every day. People are coerced into thinking that they will have a better tomorrow, fighting for a better future but it is hopeless. They will continue their struggles and face all the hardships of reality, against everything life puts them through, only to end up close to where they started. No matter what they do to convince themselves that they can change for a better life, in the end, their pasts are going to decree what they do in life and there is no other way about it.

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1029 Words | 5 Pages

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, color symbolism is used to reveal important character traits and create a variety of moods throughout chapters 1-4. Fitzgerald incorporates the color white to demonstrate the virginal purity and initial innocence of some of the characters. He also uses this symbolism of the color white to differentiate between social classes. Fitzgerald then affiliates the colors gray and yellow with the dismal corruption that engulfs the novel. To tie everything together, he develops a pattern of the color green to portray how Gatsby’s world revolves around a greedy, yet romanticized dream, only attainable through money.

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