Color Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

Colors can tell someone an abundance of information on a topic because of the color’s warmth or the object it is most commonly seen in. Fitzgerald uses colors to further explain the meaning behind the symbols in his novel, “The Great Gatsby”. The novel is set in the 1920s in which the new rich came about. In Fitzgerald’s novel, the new rich, the old rich, and the working class socialize and create chaos; further explaining the thought that different social classes should not interact. The author Fitzgerald uses green to symbolize hope, white to depict innocence, and yellow to detect materialism and decay. Throughout his novel, “The Great Gatsby”, Fitzgerald’s use of color imagery conveys a theme.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, The Great Gatsby, exposes the corruption and greed of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald is able to captivate readers' attentions through his employment of color symbolism. Fitzgerald portrays important messages in the novel by his symbolic use of colors. Colors play an important role in Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the lives of Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway and many of the other characters in the novel. Fitzgerald uses the colors white, yellow, and green to express certain sentiments to the reader, commenting what is going on in the story. Fitzgerald uses the color white to symbolize purity and innocence, while yellow is used to symbolize moral decay, and death. Green is used to represent hope and

Colors have a large impact on society. They have the ability to affect people’s moods, appetites, and behaviors. Colors also have the ability to act as symbols. For example, the color white often acts as a symbol of innocence, and the color yellow often represents happiness. Throughout the book The Great Gatsby, multiple colors symbolize different aspects of Jay Gatsby’s life.

In The Valley of the Ashes the color gray can be used to describe nearly everything in the town. This includes the people, the land, the cars, and even the air. “Occasionally a line of gray cars crawl along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up and impenetrable cloud” (23). The color gray is used many times throughout the book but mainly to describe The Valley of the Ashes. Another color that is not primary and used often in the book is the color

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, has deeper information hidden by colors all over the book. Each color has its own significant meaning and connects to the story in some way. From nearly all the colors on the rainbow to the color grey, there is a connection between these buried meanings behind all of the colors. Green is the most important color throughout the book because of special meanings and roles it plays on all of the characters. The color green relates to wealth and success on almost all of the characters. Gatsby is the one who brings this color to life and connects with it to show how it takes part in this story.

What does the color green make you think of? Do you think of beautiful forests home to unique animals and intricate ecosystems? Do you think of fresh ripe kiwi in the summer? Do you think of broccoli ,which takes the cake as the most hated vegetable by children under 8? A lot of times people see colors very basically and don’t think about the connotation or symbolism behind them Fitzgerald is the contrary. He uses colors throughout the novel as a way to express his ideas in a more interpretive way that cause the reader to really analyze the novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald converges Gatsby's primary motivations with the use of the color green, a symbol that represents both wealth, money, the chase of the American dream and ,on the flip-side, a renewal and revival of his and Daisy’s relationship. Fitzgerald shows green in its many lights, from the physical representation of wealthy, to wealths grasp on an individual who idolizes it, to its freshness in relation to a new frontier to the American dream.

Grey is the color that’s everywhere among the valley implies the unfaithful condition of those people who lives there. Under the circumstance of that time, people cannot override these obstacles to be successful; therefore the American Dream is not achievable for them since the poor’ have no opportunities to progress their will. In addition when Tom told Wilson, Gatsby killed his wife in the valley of ashes. “Wilson’s glazed eyes turned out to the ashheaps, where small grey clouds took on fantastic shape and scurried here and there in the faint dawn wind”(Fitzgerald 167). Through Wilson’s grey eyes once it again proves the dilemma people have to go through. Meanwhile Tom in this case represents the corrupted one utilizing Wilson as a tool to go against Gatsby. By applying the color grey it shows the hopeless of the poor and spreading the corruption among people. Furthermore, when Nick and Tom went to Gatsby’s party, they gathered and talk about the surrounding of Gatsby’s mansion. “It was dawn now on Long Island and we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with grey turning, gold turning light” (Fitzgerald 159). Both two colors gold and grey are being implied. Gold means the wealth, grey in another hand means the depravity that exists among the wealth. Fitzgerald used grey and gold describe Gatsby’s house since he is rich in a way, but he got his money from a unregulated way, which shows among the

While many would connect the color grey with George, the irrelevant individual who never lived up to the standards of the wealthy, we can also make this connection with Gatsby, who happens to be one of the wealthiest. Even Gatsby had, “foul dust [floating] in the wake of his dreams,” (Fitzgerald.4) revealing that although he might seem content on the outside, he is melancholy and gloomy on the inside. Nevertheless, George Wilson can be best identified as grey, boring and insignificant. When Nick first encounters George, “a white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity,” (Fitzgerald.29) showing just how distressed George truly was. He was surrounded by wealthy people living in the luscious lands of West and East Egg, yet he was stuck in the middle, in a wasteland covered in ash and soot known as The Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes represents the forgotten, the, “men who move dimly and [are] already crumbling through the powdery air.” (Fitzgerald.26) Every single piece of grey, “the grey cars…the ash-grey men…the grey land,” (Fitzgerald.26) brought hopelessness and anguish upon those who passed The Valley of Ashes. The Valley stands for pain and destruction as it was the place of death of Myrtle as she, “knelt in the road and mingled her thick, dark blood with the dust.” (Fitzgerald.147) There isn’t a slim chance of happiness in The Valley of Ashes, and there never will be

Colors are an essential part of the world around us. They can convey messages, expressing that which words do not. Gentle blue tones can calm a person and bright yellows can lift the spirits. If an artist is trying to express sorrow or death he often uses blacks blues, and grays basically he uses dreary colors. Without one word, a driver approaching a red traffic light knows to stop. Colors are representative of many things. In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color symbolism throughout as a major device in thematic and character development. He uses colors to symbolize the many different intangible ideas in the book. Throughout the book characters, places, and objects are given "life" by colors, especially the more

Colors are very apparent in The Great Gatsby. They often show up as descriptions to many important items throughout the book, and make those items resemble symbols. The color white confuses the reader, and often causes him/her to rethink their logic. It describes false purity and deception within something, which is very apparent in the character Daisy in this novel. The color grey gives the reader a comparison, and that is of humans to machines. Something that is lifeless is described as grey. After that, there is the final color of blue, something that is very dreamy. This is mostly associated with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg but is also seen in other things as well. The colors white, grey, and blue cause the reader to rethink this whole book, and are associated with the most important symbols, in this novel. It is colors that truly make The Great Gatsby, a marvelous book to read.

Color express mood and stresses importance of events in a novel. In the Great Gatsby, the symbolism of color is a crucial one. Yellow, white, and green all affect the mood of this novel. Showing how the colors describe the person or thing both physically, and emotionally.

Color imagery in The Great Gatsby is vital to the books storyline. If there was no color imagery then the reader could not associate a certain person or thing with a color or idea. Fitzgerald uses the color so people can remember the person more than just their name. The use of color imagery greatly impacts the story line.

"Never has symbolism played such a crucial part in the very foundation of a novel as it does in Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, The Great Gatsby." Harold Bloom has written about this book. The author used several types of symbolism in The Great Gatsby. The colours are probably the easiest to be recognized and guessed what they symbolized. According to the definition “symbolism” is "the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships."

During the 1920’s, many people would disguise themselves through the identities of someone else. In the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main characters can be seen “hiding” behind the symbolism of different colors. Color affects the mood, emphasizes the importance of events in a novel, and can also interact with the personalities of the characters. The concept of color symbolism is prominent in the novel. White, yellow, blue, green, and even the color black affect the atmosphere of scenes through association with a specific mood, and also through the actions of the characters.

The use of symbolism in The Great Gatsby, adds remarkable depth to the novel. Fitzgerald uses colors throughout the book to represent the different themes that he is conveying. The colors, green and white, in particular are extremely important. The color green symbolizes jealousy of characters.