Category: Color

Indian-American author Fareed Zakaria once stated, “Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn’t mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense – the idea that anyone can make it.” The idea of social mobility and the creation of oneself into one’s idolized vision of affluence in society is central in the novel The Great Gatsby, as it is pursued religiously by Jay Gatsby, the eccentric millionaire behind lavishly outrageous parties in the 1920s era. The Great Gatsby is the story of Jay Gatsby, as told by Nick Carraway, a Midwesterner who travels to Manhattan to begin a career in the bond business. Living adjacent to Gatsby’s mansion, Nick becomes curious about his neighbor, finally meeting him as he is invited to one of his famous parties. Here Nick learns that Gatsby is in love with Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin and the wife of Tom Buchanan, Nick’s colleague from Yale. He also learns that Gatsby and Daisy had once been in love, but Daisy married Tom while Gatsby was away during the Great War, thus prompting Gatsby to abandon his old identity and amass a fortune in hopes to win her back; ultimately failing to regain her admiration, he falls into utter despair, his life violently extinguished by the end of the novel. In the case of The Great Gatsby, symbolism is heavily demonstrated through the use of the color green. No matter the culture, green insinuates vitality and hope, and conversely, wealth and ambition, much like Gatsby presents in his perusal of his dreams. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the symbolic and repeated use of the color green throughout the novel first exemplifies Gatsby’s aspirations to reunite with Daisy, but progresses to symbolize the delusional conviction possessed by Gatsby in his pursuit of his idealized vision; with his failure to reconcile his desires, the symbolism of green collapses, now standing for the unreachable dream that lives inside all people, connecting to Fitzgerald’s commentary on the illusion of social mobility.

The archetypal color green is first introduced as a green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock, as an elusively powerful object that has great symbolic meaning for Gatsby, later transitioning to represent the invention of Gatsby into his idealized self-vision, and developing later to symbolize the destruction of Gatsby’s pursuits, and simultaneously the impossibility of social mobility. The first time the color green is observed is After Nick returns home from dinner with the Buchanans, where he sees Gatsby for the first time. Nick looks out at the water, but all he can see is a distant green light marking the end of a dock. He notes how, “… [Gatsby] stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. 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.” (24). In Gatsby’s eyes, the green light is representative of Daisy. Gatsby, set to win Daisy back, is yet to lose hope and yearns towards the green light, which possesses the same hopefulness archetypally. Though the light is “… minute and far away…”(24), he retains the belief that he is able to reach the green light, hold onto his hope and reconcile his dreams, despite the truth that Gatsby’s illusions of prosperity are brief, unattainable figments. As the novel progresses, rumors about Gatsby circulate. Having learned the truth about Gatsby’s life sometime before writing his account, Nick now retells Gatsby’s personal history truthfully, writing, “James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career… It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby…” (104-105). Nick’s description of Gatsby’s life reveals the sensitivity to status that spurs Gatsby on. Aware of his poverty, the young Gatsby developed a powerful obsession with amassing wealth and status that contradicts the air of simplicity that his “green jersey and pair of canvas pants…” (104-105) represents. Gatsby’s act of recasting himself through the creation of “Jay Gatsby” symbolizes his desire to relinquish his lower-class identity and become the wealthy man he envisions. In truth, Jay Gatsby sprang from his envisionment of himself, and to this illusion, he was faithful to his demise. In this instance, green is most representative of Gatsby’s youth; his old self on the cusp of transformation, and his development into Jay Gatsby, enamored with the meretricious beauty of a life of wealth and luxury, yet still ignorant to the facade of such aspirations. As the novel continues, Gatsby shows his enormous fortune to Daisy, who begins to cry when she is faced with his incredible wealth. Gatsby speaks to Daisy, saying, “If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay… You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (100). Daisy, “seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever” (100). Gatsby, nearly realizing his dream, becomes lost in a deep reverie in lieu of the disparity between the real Daisy and Daisy as he’d imagined her. Now the green light seems to have lost its original allure and fascinating charm for Gatsby, symbolic of the difference between his dreams and reality and indicative of the spuriousness of social mobility; what is beautiful in the imagination is but fragility in reality. Gatsby tells Daisy about his nights spent outside, staring at the green light at the end of her dock, dreaming of their future together, and Nick wonders if Daisy can live up to Gatsby’s vision of her. As Gatsby, previously enamored, becomes aware of this, he realizes that the green light, once representative of, “the great distance that had separated him from Daisy…” (99-100) was now just “… again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (99-100). Gatsby revalued his character according to the measure of response he believed it would draw from Daisy, and with the loss of the meaning of the green light comes the failure to reconcile his desires, and the projection of the futility in aspiring towards wealthiness; With the green light no longer symbolic of Gatsby’s hopefulness in the way it once was, Gatsby looks upon his possessions in a dazed way as though in the green light’s actual and astounding presence, none of it was any longer real, a signifier of the beginning of the end.

Just as the archetypal color green served to represent Gatsby’s diligent hopefulness, the color progresses further to symbolize the delusional conviction possessed by Gatsby in his pursuit of wealth and failure to reconcile Daisy as he realizes his incapability to satisfy her, and finally, as Gatsby’s dreams are devastated, green instead conveys the unreachable dream that lives inside all people, one that is as unattainable as the green light at the end of Gatsby’s dock. Gatsby invites Tom and additional guests to stay over for dinner, yet Tom, contemptuous of Gatsby’s lack of social grace and critical of Daisy’s habit of visiting Gatsby’s house alone, is suspicious of the pair. He has not yet discovered Gatsby and Daisy’s fondness of each other. Later, Daisy, Nick, and Tom attend one of Gatsby’s parties, and while Daisy is initially awed by the excitement, finds the revelry oppressive at its conclusion. Nick, aware that Gatsby’s dream is dwindling, had, “grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures…” (112). Daisy, initially enamored, states, “These things excite me SO… If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green…” (112). Green here is symbolic of the initial vitality of Daisy’s excitement, yet it is quick to fade as Daisy becomes cognate of the gaudiness of Gatsby’s display of wealth. Gatsby retains that his fortune and social class can reconcile Daisy, yet Nick reflects that much like the meretriciousness of West Egg social class, Gatsby’s dream is spurious. Gatsby is later framed in cold blood by Tom, and is consequently murdered; Daisy retreats back to Tom, extinguishing Gatsby’s unfulfilled dreams of winning her over. On his last night in West Egg before moving, Nick walks over to Gatsby’s empty mansion and considers what the island looked like to explorers who discovered the New World centuries before. He imagines that it was once a goal for dreamers, just as attaining his idealized vision of himself was to Gatsby. He pictures the green land of America as the green light from Daisy’s dock and muses that Gatsby failed to realize that the dream was an illusion and that his goals had become hollow and empty. In his thoughts, Nick voices, “… I became aware of the old island here … a fresh, green breast of the new world… had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of Free…” (192). Green is symbolically used to portray the fertility and opportunity that was once present in this “.. new world…” (192), but is soured by the implementation of a rigid class structure that excludes newcomers from its upper reaches, and is instead representative of the eventual destruction of Gatsby’s hopes. Gatsby, presented with the “… fresh, green breast of a new world…” (192) had the audacity to dream of creating a radically different future for himself, but his dream ends in failure, solidifying the illusion that was social mobility in the 1920s era. With the death of Gatsby comes the death of the opportunistic faith in the accumulation of wealth and prosperity, indicative of the disillusionment of social mobility. Nick once again ponders of Gatsby, thinking, “… of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way… and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city… Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us…” (192-193). Besides the disillusionment of this dream, the reappearance of the green light also is symbolic of new hope and the ceaseless struggle to climb the social ladder. Gatsby, with love and wealth, disconcerts his dream and gambles on Daisy, who remains indifferent. In such a society full of materialism, carefree hedonism, and rigidly defined classes, Gatsby’s pursuit of his idealized vision is incompatible with the social environment, thus proving Fitzgerald’s theme of the illusion of social mobility to be veracious.

The Great Gatsby is a work of literary masterpiece serving to capture the mood and characteristics of the 1920s era. The symbolism through the color green at work throughout the entirety of the novel plays an integral role in developing the plot, shaping characters and deepening the theme of the illusion of social mobility. Among different symbols Fitzgerald employed in this novel, the intrinsic nature of the color green makes a deep impression, containing and being given a meaning deeper than surface-level wherever it appears. Green, most associated with the idea and character of Gatsby’s dreams and idealized vision of himself, is just as minute and out of reach as this is to Gatsby. Symbolic of Gatsby’s original hopes and dreams of rekindling his lost love with Daisy, green is intertwined with his ceaseless pursuit and the eventual corruption and futility of this dream, and allows readers to question whether Fitzgerald’s theme of the true illusion of social mobility is ever-present among society today, much as it was in the 1920s era.

What does Blue Color Symbolize in Great Gatsby?

Fitzgerald uses imagery patterns of the color white to explore the ideological perspective that those who live an idyllic life may be the most unhappy. White is often used as a symbol for cleanliness, perfectness, and purity, yet Fitzgerald subverts this, symbolizing that what appears pristine may hide dark pasts and that those who live an idyllic life may be the most unhappy. Daisy represents innocence and purity, just like the color white, where she is described as “dressed in white”, mentions her “white girlhood”, and even powders her face in white. Gatsby also sees this, describing her as “high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl”. Yet, although the color white represents perfectness and purity, Daisy represents false purity. She puts on this façade of being pure, happy, and wealthy, yet it is revealed that she is in fact horrendously unhappy with her life. She is not pure and innocent, but instead avaricious and materialistic. She lives an affluent life with her successful husband and perfect family but is not satisfied and greedy for more, which she satiates through her affairs with Gatsby. Although she is rich and could buy whatever she desires, she is still not happy, nor satisfied, thus this idea that those who live an idyllic life may be the most unhappy is conveyed. This comes back again to the Marxist ideology, which in this case mocks the rich, as although there are superior class-wise, they are still miserable. Thus patterns in the imagery of the color white serve an ideological purpose to mock the wealthy in their misery, through the idea that those who live an idyllic life may be the most unhappy.

Another pattern of imagery is the color blue, which represents dreams and disillusionment, conveying the idea that the rich lead an illusioned life. On the T.J Eckleburg billboard, Eckleburg’s eyes are described as “blue and gigantic”. Eckleburg serves as a god-like character, who can see through the illusions of the citizens of the Egg, revealing that all is not what it seems. A blue ocean provided a bridge from Gatsby to Daisy, a symbol of his dream to reunite with her and relive the past, which of course was an illusion. He cannot change history, and thus Gatsby’s dream was disillusioned, alluded to by the blue. At Gatsby’s party, one of the girls pictured in the yellow dresses got a gown from Gatsby, described as “gas blue with lavender beads”. Gatsby has gotten to the stage where his wealth is so excessive that he can give away expensive evening gowns. He’s always desired wealth, and to be able to spend frivolously symbolizes that he is rich enough to get close to Daisy. The blue gown represents this dream, but really the happiness that the dream promised him was just an illusion, and wealth did not buy him happiness. Another depiction, of the “Chauffer in robin’s egg blue” also conveys this idea of Gatsby’s dream, where the chauffer is a symbol of richness and represents Gatsby’s dream to be rich. Once again the blue alludes to this. Thus the use of the blue conveys the idea that the rich lead an illusioned life, allowing the Marxist ideology to mock them for thinking they have it all.

In the Great Gatsby, patterns of imagery have an aesthetic and ideological purpose through their capacity to create a visual representation that evokes an emotional and critical response in the audience. The colors yellow and gold are used to convey the idea that greediness for wealth leads to corruption and moral decay, white represents the idea that those who live an idyllic life are the most unhappy, and blue reveals the idea that the rich lead an illusioned life. This repeated use of visual imagery in the depiction of color allows for the perception of a satirical representation of the Marxist ideology, which mocks the superstructure, or the bourgeoisie, for leading an illusioned life. Thus, the Great Gatsby uses color to establish a pattern of visual imagery, which evokes an emotional and critical response that serves an aesthetic and ideological purpose.

After acquainting myself with several The Great Gatsby essay examples and conducting thorough research, I can confidently assert that the color that someone likes the most, more often than not reveals a lot about their personality. With that in mind, Fitzgerald uses certain colors to show certain characters’ true intentions and personalities. In the book The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pushes the idea of the American Dream, and how practically anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard enough for it. But, unfortunately, many people today are not able to achieve their dream due to the cycle of debt. So when understanding each other and their American dream we can use colors to decipher who they are. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses colors, and symbols to illustrate every character’s true personality. And to add depth and push the theme of the American Dream.

Gold and yellow in The Great Gatsby have been used frequently throughout the book, and it has numerous meanings that can show the reader the characters’ true intentions. Gold and yellow symbolize money, aristocracy, and Daisy. Furthermore, it also signifies affluence, greed, and cowardice. For Gatsby, pursuing Daisy proves to be no simple task. Gatsby works his way to becoming a more prosperous, rich, and influential person, all in order to attain his American dream, Daisy. Gatsby, therefore, utilizes the color yellow and gold, in his clothing, car, house decor, and party to display that he is a glamorous and high-class individual. To Gatsby, Daisy is a sort of dream girl, “High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (65) In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is flinging his shirts to Daisy. But then, Daisy cries, with her face down in his shirt. She had finally realized that if she hadn’t left Gatsby then, she would be living graciously with Gatsby, instead of being in an abusive marriage.

In The Great Gatsby, the color white is also very prevalent throughout the book. While Fitzgerald not only uses the color white to symbolize certain traits, but also certain people in the book, particularly Daisy. Daisy is Gatsby’s Golden girl, but, Fitzgerald uses the color white to emphasize the fairness and innocence of Daisy throughout this book. White symbolizes purity, innocence, peace, immaculate loveliness, nobility, and beauty. When Daisy and Gatsby first met Daisy was wearing a white dress, Fitzgerald describes it as so, “She was dressed in white and had a little white roadster” (p79). This gives the reader the perception that Daisy is pure, innocent, and high class. However, white is a sort of double-edged sword, white may also symbolize emptiness, superficiality, and selfishness. Characterizing Daisy with the color white displays that she only has two sides to her personality. Daisy’s life is filled with luxury. She wasted her life with boring activities and a lack of social contact. To simply state the obvious, the color white is used to symbolize Daisy as both a pure and corrupt person.

Finally, green symbolizes vitality, confidence, and hope. Green represents Gatsby’s American Dream and the love of his life, the pursuit of his American Dream practically ruined his life. The very first time the green light was mentioned was at the tail end of chapter one. “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” (p24). A beacon is at the end of Daisy’s dock. In the eyes of Gatsby, the beacon represents Daisy, who is his American dream. The next time the beacon is brought up was in chapter five. Gatsby says to Daisy that “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (p99). He realized his dream, but he loses his dream, because of the difference between the real Daisy and the Daisy he imagined. The next time the beacon was mentioned was at the end of the book, with Gatsby’s death, people that were close to him almost completely disregarded his existence, which shows the true reality of the American Dream. Gatsby believes in the beacon, the orgiastic future that, as time goes by, slips out of the grip of children and adults around the world. “It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (p193). The reality of his dream, the beacon also shows how hope and the struggles toward our dream, can be crushed or achieved with the snap of a finger. How basic everyone’s lives can be, to the point where everyone can be utterly destroyed by the simple loss of hope.

In conclusion, Fitzgerald creates and shapes a world that colors around the characters of the novel, not only constructing distinctive looks and behaviors but likewise elaborating upon their personalities and sentiments. The colors associate the reader with the novel by making them experience the book as it happens. This creates a greater connection and makes the reader really feel and understand the characters. A great example; is Gatsby, who was beautifully created to deceive the reader, then suddenly make the reader feel great for him. Not only did Fitzgerald create a whole world in this novel, but he also uses full lines of rich color imagery to create this world. Gatsby’s personality is immensely shaped by the color imagery, validating how great The Great Gatsby was.

In his famous novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, F. Scott Fitzgerald used various literary devices to present the main themes of the work and the personalities of his characters. In my essay, I want to find out what the weather and colors in the novel symbolize.

First of all, in ‘The Great Gatsby’, Fitzgerald uses colors mainly to represent status and class. Through the motif of colors, it depicts the emotions and relationships that each character has as a result of the class that they are in. Colors represent the desire to be indifferent to classes, as well as how people give off false impressions of being in a particular class. Fitzgerald assigns a specific color to each of the main characters to express their status. At the beginning of the novel, Nick goes to visit some of his friends. As he arrived, he was astonished by the colossal house. He describes the house as “…even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bat…” (9). Tom Buchanan owns the ‘Georgian Colonial mansion’. He embodies the colors ‘red and white’. Red represents the aristocracy or powerful ruling class and intense emotions, their characteristics fit Tom’s character perfectly. White is most known as innocent and feminine, but it can also mean selfish, careless, and destructive. This is ironic because, at the end of the novel, the rich people do not get any punishment for the wrongdoing of causing three innocent people to get killed. At the beginning of the third chapter, Nick goes over to Gatsby’s house. While he enters the glorious gates, he notices: “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars…A chauffeur in a uniform of robin’s-egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning” (39). Gatsby is constantly surrounded by blue, representing fantasy and new money. Gatsby embodies the color blue but constantly strives to be more like Tom, who embodies the color red. The color blue represents a fantasy of what the aristocracy is like. Red is the true aristocracy. Since Gatsby is not part of the aristocracy and does not embody the color red, he stands out whenever he encounters it. Thus, Fitzgerald uses colors to represent the characters’ status and class. Even though color can mean anything different between each of us, weather can also have a symbiotic meaning.

In the novel, the weather can symbolize the human emotions of the characters during each situation. The weather has much to do with setting the mood for each event. During Daisy’s visit to Gatsby’s house, the lookout in the bay and Gatsby said: “If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay…You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock” (92). The quote illustrates the barrier to the reunion of Gatsby and Daisy. “If it wasn’t for the mist” displays the barrier and the distance that has fallen between Daisy and Gatsby. The mist can also represent materialism and the new family of Daisy, causing the two love birds unable to reunite. Daisy and Gatsby later were looking at his clipbook pictures of Daisy. They stood side by side examining it, but then the phone rang and Gatsby took up the receiver, after a while it rang off and Daisy suddenly cried: “The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foaming clouds above the sea” (94). The quote illustrates hints about the future of the characters in the novel. “The rain was still falling” foreshadows the upcoming, distant trouble for the characters. And “The darkness had parted in the west” represents that only for a short period of time will things be going fine in the story, then rain will soon fall again. Thus, as we can see, the weather in the novel symbolizes the emotions of the characters.

Summarizing all of the above, F. Scott Fitzgerald in his ‘The Great Gatsby’ successfully used the symbolism of color and weather to describe the characters’ status and foreshadow.