Great Gatsby Color Analysis
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a renowned classic in American literature. The novel follows Nick Carraway in his new life in Long Island, during the roaring 1920’s. Nick lives in West Egg, while his cousin, Daisy, lives with her husband, Tom, in East Egg, across the Long Island Sound. Daisy and Nick’s neighbor, Gatsby, rekindle their old love, and are the main conflict of the story. Along with several other motifs and symbols, Fitzgerald uses color to connect themes and characters in numerous ways. The two most frequently appearing colors in The Great Gatsby are white and yellow. White represents purity, wealth, and simplicity while yellow represents corruption, attention, and guilt. White and
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As the story progresses, the use of white is used to describe Daisy, while hinting at her corruption. Later in the novel, Nick and Gatsby converse about Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship. Gatsby recalls an “autumn night, five years before… the sidewalk was white with moonlight… [Gatsby’s] heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his… [Gatsby] knew that when he kissed this girl… his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (110). Gatsby knew, even five years before, that behind Daisy’s pure white facade, is a yellow harshness. Days later, Nick and Gatsby are invited have lunch with the Buchanans and Jordan Baker. Walking into the living room, Nick is once again greeted by, “Daisy and Jordan [lying]... like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses” (115). Being described as silver idols wearing white dresses gives a very definite sense of innocence and purity. However, Nick notices the changes in Daisy as he talks with Tom before leaving for the city. Tom describes Daisy’s voice as “full of money,” and Nick agrees, saying, “the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in [her voice], the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it. . . . high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (120). The “white palace” ties to Daisy’s previous purity, as she has now become a more harsh “golden girl.” Gatsby’s new influence causes Daisy to be blinded and become a new
Throughout The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals more and more rumors about Gatsby and what he has done. However, this all just speculation, as nobody knows the real truth behind Gatsby. Therefore, Gatsby is best represented by the color black. Grok describes black as “the color of mystery, of things not yet revealed.” There is definitely a mystery surrounding Gatsby regarding his past.. His party-goers tend to be the ones that concoct and spread these rumors: “‘he killed a man once’… ‘it’s more that he was a German spy during the war’” (44). Gatsby is generally a reclusive character; he tends not to tell others much about his personal life. The party-goers (generally rich) speculate about how he has the money entertain all of these
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.
When F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing The Great Gatsby, he was not only working as a writer, he was an artist painting a piece through his words. While making the lives of fictional characters come to life for the reader, one of the main tools he used to do this was by using the symbolism of colors. Nick Carraway, the main character, befriends many of the wealthiest and corrupt people of Long Island, while exposing them for what they truly are in the journeys he endures with them. His extravagant use of colors to illustrate scenes and characters helps us determine the symbolism behind them, and how they’re used to expose the true personalities of the characters.
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.
The colors gold and yellow are one of the clearest examples of misleading appearances. Gatsby flaunts his “new money” by throwing massive parties hoping to attract Daisy’s attention so she will come back to him. However, Gatsby is not old money like Daisy, and does not see the difference between him and her. Gatsby’s bigger purchases like his car and his house are both very flashy and ostentatious, which is not the way of “old money”. Gatsby's car is bright yellow and makes a statement, unlike Tom, Daisy’s husband’s car, which is blue. The fact that Gatsby’s car is also yellow proves that the does not see the difference between “old money” and “new money”. Gold and it's display is one of the strongest differences between old money and new money that creates the division of classiness and flashiness. Gold is a pure,
In general, the color white symbolizes innocence, purity, and cleanliness. In the novel, the color white is closely associated with Daisy. “White, even after one excludes near-synonyms such as silver, makes more appearances in the novel than any other single color, and something like three of every four are applied to East Egg or characters from East Egg, especially to Daisy” (Elmore 428). This quote proves that the color white contributes to a major theme in the novel. Daisy wears white to show her innocence. The first time Nick sees Daisy and Jordan, they are both wearing white. Nick describes seeing the women in the quote, “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). It was the women, so magical and light, like birds or butterflies that flew around the house. They could fly, but they didn't fly far, only around the house which they got blown back into. These women don't have much ambition or power on their own. They are housebound, even though they can fly. In the beginning of the novel, the reader believes Daisy is innocent. Even her name Daisy is a kind of white flower. When introduced to her for the first time, people feel that she is pure, flawless, and noble. This is one of the reasons Gatsby is infatuated with her throughout his life and regards her as a pure beauty. The
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is told by Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s neighbor. Nick is an upper class American bond trader who moves to New York from the West. There, he meets his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is odd, but very wealthy. Nick becomes involved in Gatsby’s plan to rekindle a lost love between himself and Daisy Buchanan, who happens to be Nick’s cousin. Throughout this novel, color is used to symbolize numerous things.
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.
“The past is never where you think you left it” (Katherine Anne Porter). People intentionally not willing to leave their past due to the prehistoric memories because the good memory they had. Relevant to Porter’s evince in the novel of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby a guy who cannot leave his past, constantly wanting to change everything back to the past with his former lover Daisy but never succeeds due to people’ desire of meliorate their lives. During this process the novel also reveals that there’s no distinction of careless between people in the 1920’s and the corruption of American Dream. Fitzgerald uses color symbolism to reveal the unfaithful condition of living and the loss of purity also the descended moral
YELLOW & Wilson’s Garage: The color yellow is considered to be the unauthentic version of gold. As previously stated, gold is a color of richness and value which is why we it is clearly visible in the Gatsby household. Yellow on the other hand, is quite inferior when compared to the standards of gold. In contrast to Jordan, the golden girl, her admirers are merely, “two girls in twin yellow dresses.” (Fitzgerald.47) They are so unimportant that they aren’t even called by their names. They are simply labeled as, “one of the girls in yellow,” (Fitzgerald.47) even though one, “[plays] the piano,” and the other is, “from a famous chorus.” (Fitzgerald.56) Along these same lines, Wilson’s garage is thought of as lesser than East or West Egg; since
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
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.
The color white is associated with purity and innocence. Gatsby and Nick, the main male characters in the story, can be affiliated with this