Fitzgerald’s Use of Color 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.

The color white is one of the clearest examples of deceivery in the novel because of its role in covering up and blurring the truth. Many characters in the novel display this theme. Daisy is most closely associated to the color white because of her effort to appear innocent and pure. Daisy wears white clothes and decorates her house in white to hide the scandal and lies that is her real life. Tom also displays the color white, not through his clothes, but through his behavior. Tom is a raging racists clearly shown when he says, “if we don’t look out for the white races we will be utterly submerged”(P.13). Tom associates the color white with superiority and dominance not only in regards to race, but also in regards to money. His pride 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.

Throughout literature, colors are used to represent feelings, emotions and actions of characters. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the color green is used to represent the love story between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. As he grew up and worked for his immense fortune, Gatsby transformed his life into one he felt would impress her the most. Fitzgerald uses the color green to represent Gatsby’s perfect image of Daisy, and the greed that engulfs the couple throughout the entire novel.

Colors can invoke feelings for people. Certain colors are attached to moods. Red can represent anger, green sometimes represents envy and blue can represent calm or even melancholy. Much art, music, and literature is dependent on color to convey the intended mood of the artist. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, a man with wealth, power, and possessions is on a quest for the dream that he will never attain. He cannot have all that he already has plus the true love of Daisy. Fitzgerald creates his own unique motifs surrounding certain colors and uses these colors to emphasize the futility in Gatsby’s quest for this dream. Through the use

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.

Color creates change in the setting and the mood. The colors in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald define the Character Jay Gatsby. The colors that are used to define Jay’s character is blue, green, gold and yellow.

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.

Daisy’s car, clothes, and rooms were white. Though most of the adjectives used to describe Daisy included “white” (for example, “white girlhood”, “white neck”, and “high in a white palace”), she was not always pure, especially towards the end of the novel. This could be symbolic of the fact that even the most virtuous characters in The Great Gatsby were depraved. Examples of white included “They were both in white” (pg. 13), “Our white childhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white.” (pg. 24), and "On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it" (p.

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.

In the book “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scotts Fitzgerald the author uses two of the main characters, Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby to express the hopes, feelings, and aspirations of himself and other characters the by using one theme : color. In the book Fitzgerald use Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby as a representation of himself. Everything that happened in the book is from Nicks observation. Nick also used color to express things that can not even be put into proper words or phrases.

When Gatsby was stopped by the police for speeding, he got out of it by “taking a white card from his wallet, and waving it before the man’s eyes” (Fitzgerald 68). This here shows how innocent Gatsby can be, just by using something white. When we turn our focus to Nick, we see that he believes that he himself in the most honest person he knows, and how he is usually dressed in white to symbolize his innocence. An important event in the novel is when Nick goes to Gatsby’s party for the first time, “Dressed up in white flannels, I went over to his lawn a little after seven” (Fitzgerald 47). Nick dressing in white symbolizes how he is immaculate, unlike the others at the party who could be labeled as corrupt. “White traditionally symbolizes purity, and there is no doubt that Fitzgerald wants to underscore the ironic disparity between the purity of the characters, and their actual corruption” (Schneider 146).

First, the novel utilizes vast amounts of color symbolism to create a beautiful pictures in the readers’ minds and to convey various meanings. For example, Fitzgerald writes or Nick writes, “...I glanced seaward-and distinguished except a single green light…” (Fitzgerald 21). The green light symbolizes as a signal for Gatsby to go to Daisy and to at last be reunited with her. The green light can also symbolize jealousy as it is commonly symbolized in various novels and in media. The reason why the green light can also symbolize jealousy is due to the East Egg coming from old money which Gatsby did not have the privilege to be brought up on, and as the light is located at Daisy’s home which is moreso Tom’s, the green light also symbolizes his