Colors symbolize a great deal in The Great Gatsby, and different colors symbolize different meanings and motifs. In the book, the color gold presents money and even more, “Old money. ” In the book, Nick Caraway talks about how even the turkeys at Gatsby parties were, “bewitched to a dark gold. “
Also, Jordan Baker, who is the “golden girl of golf’, is connected with color, as evident when Nick says, “With Cordon’s slender golden arm resting in mine,” and, “l put my arm around Cordon’s golden shoulder. Jordan is also associated with the color gold because she is from “Old money’ and only attends Gatsby parties because she likes to show off and adores the gossip In addition, Gatsby wears a gold tie when he goes to meet Daisy for he first time, and this represents that he wants to fit in with the “old money’ so that he and Daisy can be together. In contrast, grey or the absence Of color represent poverty and are come across most in the Valley of the Ashes, where poverty prevails.
The only time these colors mix is when Tom goes to the valley to pick up Myrtle and when they are leaving Myrtle changes into brightly colored clothes, representing that she is leaving the poverty of the valley. Comparatively, the color yellow in The Great Gatsby represents fake money, as evident by Gatsby infamous car, which represents his aspiration, ND failure, to enter the elite group of New York. Also, Gatsby plays, ‘Yellow cocktail music,” at his parties, and the, “two girls in twin yellow dresses,” are not as appealing as the golden Jordan Baker. In the book, white represents innocence, and is centered around Daisy.
Nick talks about Daisy and how her clothes are white and the rooms of her house are white and her, “white neck,” and her, ‘Ignite girlhood,” and how she was, “high in a white palace the kings daughter, the golden girl… All of these represent Daisy’s innocence and how she was brought up that way. Also, when Jordan first meets Gatsby when he and Daisy are in the car, the car is white and this shows how Daisy was still young and innocent and how she fell in love easily. The last and most important, symbolizing color is green. Green, in the book, represents the future and the main image is the one Of the green light at the end Of Daisy’s dock.
The green light represents the future and what Gatsby wants for it and what he dreams of, to be with Daisy, but it also represents the past and what he had with Daisy and how he cannot relive the past in the presence. Also, Nick describes the New World as a “fresh, green breast of the new world,” and this is parallel with what Gatsby wants with Daisy because just as the Europeans saw the new world as great and magnificent and wonderful, Gatsby sees Daisy as great and magnificent and wonderful, but the New World was already inhabited, just as Daisy was already taken, by Tom.
Also, in Norman Holmes Person’s essay, he Uses a metaphor containing traffic lights in which Daisy is the green light and if Gatsby wishes to drive toward the green light, he will first need the money to buy a car, which is ultimately what e does, amassing enormous amounts of wealth to use in his pursuit of Daisy. Another main symbol in The Great Gatsby is the eyes of Dry. T. J. Cocklebur. To different characters in the book, the eyes symbolize different ideas and meanings, but they do seem to have an overall representation. To George Wilson, Dry.
Eagleburger eyes represent the eyes of God and he believes they watch over everything and see everything. TO Nick Caraway, the eyes seem to symbolize the waste of the past and how the past, along with its good virtues and morals, has vanished, just like Dry. Eagleburger business. Dry. Eagleburger eyes also seem to represent how commercialism has over taken America and how money is everything in America, but to go along with this, they also represent the failure of the American Dream and how it is mainly just a myth and how only very few people can become filthy rich through hard work.
The eyes are also a representation of Gatsby himself, for Fitzgerald describes their eyes in the same way and uses the word, ‘Vigil,” to describe both, Gatsby eyes and Dry. Eagleburger eyes. In addition, Daisy says that Gatsby, “resembles the advertisement Of a man,” showing how material lath has taken over what is important in the US, and how Daisy is more in love with what Gatsby represents than who he actually is. F.
Scott Fitzgerald used a great amount of symbols in The Great Gatsby and gave them many different meanings, which sometimes fluctuated dependent on the character. These symbols have many underlying meanings that tie back to the themes of the novel and further help the reader understand the book. Also, the symbols help the reader get insight on what the characters are thinking and how they feel based on the characters’ perception of the symbol.
