Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Essay

He wants to be the perfect man for Daisy. “We both looked down at the grass –there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected he meant my grass” (p82). This shows the theme of appearance against reality and how Gatsby wants everything to look presentable and nice for his first meeting with Daisy after five years. He feels like having a lot of wealth, a flashy car and an enormous palace, he can reconquer her love, who is a materialistic woman. He spent years on end throwing parties, to get himself known as a rich man and so that he could attract Daisy.” He wants her to see his house … And your house is right next door” (p79). “I want you and Daisy to come over to my house… I’ d like to show her around” (p.89). Here he is planning on making his dream come true. By having Daisy at his house, he can show her that he is wealthy enough to provide for her what she wants.

In life everyone strives to get rich, but is having an abundance of money always good? Sometimes people use money for personal benefits, sometimes it's for the benefit of others, but at times people with money use it to create their social status. In The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the idea of wealth is seen throughout. Jay Gatsby, who lives next door to Nick Carraway; the Narrator of the story, wants to be with his dream girl Daisy. Gatsby is wealthy and throws parties to impress Daisy. Daisy however, is married to another man Tom Buchanan. Throughout the story the people with money use it to create their social status. In The Great Gatsby F.Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism to convey, wealth causes people to assert

People in America love to have a great deal of money. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby always wants to have money, and he finally gets it. Gatsby has parties to try to get Daisy to come to his house. Gatsby tell Nick to tell Daisy to come to Nick’s house without her husband. Gatsby finallys shows his big house off to Daisy and thinks he will win her love back again just because he has money. Gatsby’s plan do not work out. Fitzgerald uses symbols in The Great Gatsby to show how things are going wrong in America.

The Great Gatsby is a symbol itself. The Great Gatsby was written to represent the rise and fall of the American Dream. The author places the rich and wealthy lifestyle on a high pedestal while he shows the dramatic consequences of moral and social decay amongst the characters. As each turning point is revealed, the American Dream slowly crumbles in the selfish hands of those who remain ignorant to anything else in the world. The significance of the many symbolic elements in The Great Gatsby plays a role in revealing the underlying themes of the American Dream, the ongoing clash between love and wealth and social and moral destruction.

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 yellow also proves that he 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. Clearly, Gatsby misinterprets the meaning of the color yellow and equivalates it with gold, which leads him to lie he is old money when in fact he is new money.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, cars serve as status symbols for various characters functioning to criticize the material carelessness of wealthy people in American Society. Moreover, Fitzgerald highlights the interactions concerning a character and their car to reveal the deceitful nature of people and their disregard for mankind.

4. The title “The Great Gatsby” directly relates to the character Jay Gatsby himself. Though Gatsby is really just a sad, lonely man trying to regain Daisy Buchanan’s love on the inside, through the eyes of others, including Nick Carraway, he is seen as this great mysterious being. Living this sort of mysterious life and throwing these lavish parties just adds to the illusion of his greatness. For example, one of Gatsby’s first parties seen in the novel is described by Nick, stating, “I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited−they went there … Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.”

Although Gatsby came from humble origins, in order to win Daisy over he works hard to accumulate a fortune. Despite this, Gatsby does not actually love Daisy, but the idea behind her. He loves the illusion of marrying into her wealth to be seen as a greater man. Gatsby mentions in the novel:“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly. “That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it. . . . High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl.”(Fitzgerald 120) which shows his true desire for Daisy is her wealth, like a trophy. Another symbol seen often in the novel is the color green and gold. These colors symbolize wealth and greed. Gatsby is seen standing on his dock staring into a green light, which is coming from Daisy's house. This green light symbolizes his desire for wealth and an attraction like that of moths to light. Gatsby also creates a false image of himself towards the public. Gatsby claims to be well educated and paints the idea that he is an Oxford University man. He shows Nick pictures of his “past” and his library symbolizes his education. However his illusion is exposed as on a closer inspection of the books which are uncut, meaning Gatsby has not actually read them. Gatsby’s creation of this face can be accounted to the psychology seen

This car is not only an attention getter, but helps Gatsby to lose his dream, his woman, and his life. The excessiveness has now emerged as the thing which kills hope. Not only will the hopeless dreaming man use his riches to indulge in a vehicle, but also fulfill his empty dreams with a mansion.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Gatsby with a great deal of symbolism and for good reason. Symbolism in writing adds more meaning and depth to a story and helps the reader think about underlying themes. It can show what is really going on under the surface of the plot. Several issues exemplified through The Great Gatsby were that wealth and power corrupt, people aren’t what they seem, you can’t go back to the past, actions have consequences, and that the idealistic American dream has been replaced by materialism and greed.

His mansion is described as follows at page 11: “It is a colossal affair by any standard; it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and also a marble swimming pool. Jay Gatsby’s house covered more than forty acres of lawn and land.” This mansion, made on his request, fuels Gatsby’s image as a wealthy and mysterious man, given that almost everyone had been to his house due to his parties thrown on a regular basis, but nobody had ever seen him. But the house is only an image of himself he wants to divulge, but doesn’t reflect him in any way. Like his house, Gatsby has to be deeply investigated to really understand who he really is and what drives his actions. Gatsby is desperately in love with Daisy Buchanan, and chose the position of the house solely to be close to her. In fact his house overlooks hers from the other side of the bay. His entire house is designed in order for her to love it and live in it with him. Also the parties are thrown in hope that she might one day show up at one of

The automobile is a major motif that makes a regular appearance in the story. The automobile has always been a kind of status symbol in the United States. Expensive cars are associated with the possession of great wealth. Gatsby's car is described as the epitome of wealth. His reason for buying the car is to convey his material success and newfound prosperity. The fact that his car is yellow instead of the uniform black of the period stresses the idea that he is absorbed with the preoccupation of displaying his material wealth.

ideas or concepts. For example, a dove is usually used to represent peace. In the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald uses a lot of symbolism to connect the characters with each other or to other objects. Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism helps advance his thematic interest in his novel of The Great Gatsby. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses various colors, objects, and gestures as symbols to portray the lack of moral and spiritual values of people and the different aspects of society in the 1920's.

The Great Gatsby is filled with symbols and symbolism, which try to convey Fitzgerald's ideas to the reader. The symbols are uniquely involved in the plot of the story, which makes their implications more real. There are three major symbols that serve very important significance in the symbolism of the novel. They are "the valley of the ashes," the reality that represents the corruption in the world, the green light of Daisy's lap that Gatsby sees across the bay and lastly, the symbolism of the East Egg and West Egg or more important the east and the west of the country.

Gatsby, as a rich man, has many beautiful possessions. This can be noticed in his ‘gorgeous’ car which had ‘a labyrinth of