Underlying Colors Of Great Gat Essay, Research Paper

The Underlying Colors Of

The Great Gatsby

Colors can symbolize many things. In a book an author can take color and give it their own symbol. F. Scott Fitzgerald does a beautiful job of this in his book The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald brings the use of colors into the plot of this book. He gives each color an underlying meaning. The colors represent the dream and the reality of the book.

The main two colors that are symbolized in The Great Gatsby are green and white. These two colors influence the book greatly. There are also many other colors mentioned in the book that have very defined meanings such as red, blue, and yellow. With all these colors come many thoughts and emotions of the characters and what is going on with them.

The green color shows many thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and choices Gatsby makes throughout the book. A key image in the book is the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan s dock, Involuntarily I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. p.26. this green light for Gatsby was the symbol of a dream of Daisy. The color represents serenity, as in perfection, which is ironic for when Gatsby reaches the light everything becomes reality and the perfection of his dream is lost. In another way green can represents direction as a green traffic light, which means to go. To Gatsby to go for his dream and be reunited with his long lost love. For his dream is to bring back the past and make everything as it once was, I m going to fix everything just the way they were before, he said nodding determinedly. She ll see. p.117.

Green also takes a different meaning in The Great Gatsby as being an urge to strive ahead in life, to do better in life and succeed. Gatsby changes his entire life for a better, more sociable, image and status. He is constantly striving to be a more successful figure in society.

White is the other color symbolized greatly in The Great Gatsby. White usually symbolizes purity and cleanliness but Fitzgerald takes a different spin on its meaning. He uses the color white but it is stained with money. It often, in the book, is characterized with Daisy. Daisy appears many times dressed in the color white, She dressed in white and had a little white roadster p.34. This gives her the appearance of something innocent and pure but under this she is hiding dark secrets of her life. It helps to represent her in Gatsby s dream as an obtainable goal like and enchanted princess.

The yellow in the book represents money and wealth. It contrasts with all the white coloring to be the source of the stained images of white. The color yellow represents Gatsby in the sense that all his money does not matter to him because it was all for Daisy.

The color blue in the book represents hope for the future. It represents a lost time a pure color in the Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes is watched through the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg, The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic their retinas are one yard high. p.27. Later on in the book the blue eyes of T.J. Eckleburg are said as being the eyes of God which sees everything, which shows the corruption going on there even though that God is present.

The color red is also symbolized much in The Great Gatsby. It symbolizes the abuse and corruption, which takes place in the book.

Through the colors of the book the underlying meanings come out. It makes for a rich description and wonderful symbolism in The Great Gatsby.