Color In The Great Gatsby

The story of The Great Gatsby is a novel that consists of a historical American context during the Harlem Renaissance. This was an excellent novel published in the 1920’s and was considered one of the best novels of its time. The author F. Scott Fitzgerald was an incredibly talented poetic author. Fitzgerald was able to emphasize and create the mood of the generation in a political time. The novel The Great Gatsby is a remarkable novel but also a very sad one. The novel took place during an age or era known as the “Roaring Twenties” which was a time of American wealth. Politics and corruption at the time is possibly what made Gatsby to be the business man he was.

“Be careful what you wish for.” It’s too bad the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby didn’t heed this warning. Set in the 1920’s, The Great Gatsby tells the story of how the narrator, Nick Carraway, moves to Long Island and befriends the mysterious millionaire next door, eventually joining him on an adventure to help reunite him with his long-lost love. With the extravagant parties and riches beyond compare, the book soon takes a turn for the worst. However, the tragic ending could have been avoided if only the characters hadn’t been blinded by what they wanted. Although each character was driven by their desires, the character most blinded by his dreams was Jay Gatsby, the namesake of the novel. All Gatsby ever wanted was for Daisy Buchanan to love him. Everything Gatsby did was to win Daisy’s love, but his efforts were ultimately in vain. As the book progresses, the reader begins to learn and to understand Jay Gatsby’s motivations, eventually seeing that his dreams of being with Daisy were the driving force behind his quest for wealth.

The book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has been read in schools for decades. The experience is different for everyone. Some may love this book while others just purely hate it. I have to say I am in between loving and hating this book. I do like the look into the lives of the rich of the 1920s and I did enjoy the overall story. However the cheating I wasn’t fond of. I do understand that is what happens with the rich so I do enjoy the fact that it historically accurate. Another topic that I will touch upon is the drunkenness and reckless driving portrayed, quite accurately, for this time period.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald the author's repeated use of colors indicate significant events and represent mood, specifically with Jay Gatsby's yellow car, Doctor T. J. Eckelburg's blue eyes, and the gray color of the Valley of Ashes. Together these three, along with other events or objects represented by color, are important in explaining the storyline to the reader **through creating moods and themes**.

Colors are used every day in the world around us. Often, colors are used to interpret different images and develop a deeper meaning. During the 1920s, the world began to be occupied with colors that epitomized new ideas and new beliefs. These new ideas and beliefs throughout the roaring 20s were established off of status, as people began to enjoy life more. Out of these ideas, came pieces of literature such as Scott F. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby that embraced the new idea of colors being used to develop a deeper meaning. In his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald utilizes varying colors such as yellow, white, and pink to serve as symbols representing the progression of Gatsby and the pursuit of his dream much like the pursuit of status for

The color symbolism in The Great Gatsby is represented by the colors gold, red, and green. The color gold means wealth and strength which is used quite a few times by Fitzgerald. “I was gonna wear it tonight, but it was to big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads.

He drives a yellow Rolls-Royce which is the car leading to the inevitable death of Myrtle Wilson. Even his lavish parties in West Egg are loud with the yellow cocktail music and crowded with wealthy individuals partaking in drinking and promiscuity. Gatsby is a man who knows what he wants and will do everything to acquire it. Going as far as to bootleg and lie to get what he wanted, Daisy, despite the consequences as he thought wealth would win her over. Fittingly, the last Fitzgerald mentions Gatsby in the last pages of the novel when he “disappeared among the yellowing trees” (161). The color of the autumn leaves represent the decay and death. Gatsby is not the only character surrounded by the corruption of yellow. George Wilson who lives in the valley of ashes with his wife, Myrtle Wilson, are both infected with corruption and decay. They live in a yellow brick house. Moral decay is apparent as George plots to kill Jay for the hit-and-run accident. Gatsby was not the one who ran Myrtle over as it was Daisy in control of the wheel. In the article “Nature and Optics in the Great Gatsby,” by Westbrook, he generalizes that the “most brilliant of colors attends ironically upon its unhappiest events” (81). Yellow, the color of decay and corruption symbolizes the failure of Gatsby’s dream as it was Daisy who actually led to his death. The color yellow reflects the characteristics of the Roaring 20’s and the fate of many Americans, especially soldiers, at that

In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, photography is used as a mechanism of superficial representation in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, photographs and their illustration personify the characters in a light that may be deceitful of their true depth. In the novel, characters such as Myrtle, Jordan, and Gatsby use photographs as a blanket to cover the true extent of their individuality, but also as a token of their past, present, and future endeavors. Each character is inevitably distinct in their relationship to the superficial representation that photographs produce. Myrtle’s infatuation with celebrities and their lifestyle leaves her gaping at the thought of living a luxurious lifestyle herself. Jordan is

Editor and critic Ernest Lockridge writes “…chaos in The Great Gatsby assumes many forms. “Foul dust” finds its greatest extension of course in the “valley of ashes””. (Lockridge 8) The valley plays into the novel by being home to Myrtle the women Daisy’s Husband Tom Buchannan is having an affair with. Even within violence, it is met with ill moral judgments, when Daisy strikes Myrtle in Gatsby’s yellow car, having neither of them had the courage or decency to stop and see if she was ok but having kept on driving away. For it is even the home to the deceit of when Tom told Wilson that it was Jay Gatsby who had hit his wife and for it was him too who was having an affair with her. Editor and critic Linda Pavlovski writes “The Valley of Ashes and the sign with the blank eyes of Dr. Eckleburg indicate a moral wasteland and an absent God.”(Pavlovski) In Gatsbys’ American dream it symbolizes him winning over Daisy, but it had been corrupted by the pursuit of riches. Gatsby has bought the biggest place and filled it with parties hoping that Daisy would come to one of them in the hoping of getting back

Clouds of dust linger. A hand placed straight outward, and nothing is visible. The atmosphere is gray, and darkness closes in. Take one step forward and an object appears. It is a body. Three bodies piled on top of each other, biodegrading, to be exact. They turn completely into dust, leaving only a pile of ashes and many questions’. Who are they? Where did they come from? Why are they here? What did they have in common? All these questions have an answer. It may take some time, of course, but they are retrievable. The topic is death. An idea illustrated throughout the novel The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Three characters live in completely different ways. Jay Gatsby, a desperate man, got his illegal wealth fast in his early twenties. Myrtle Wilson spent her time as a mistress of a wealthy polo player who lives in West Egg. Finally, George Wilson made his fortuneless living as an Automobile Garage owner. The three all have one thing in common, and that is wealth. They either have it, want it or are longing for it. Fitzgerald illustrates the absence of wealth in poverty causes a gray death.

In the book, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gatsby is exemplified through many symbols and idols. Fitzgerald uses cars to represent wealth, success, status, and glamour. As Friedrich Nietzsche states, “There are more idols in the world than there are realities.” Nietzsche’s quote shows how idols and symbols are used to create impressions. Images are powerful and set a stage for others to judge one’s character, enabling human beings to avoid seeing what realities are. Idols are potent enough to mask the truth. In the novel, despite Gatsby 's own insecurities, he is viewed as an idol in society. Idols impact and influence Gatsby’s life and those living around him. Gatsby’s car represents an idol, illustrating his wealth, capturing attention, creating impressions, and covering misconceptions throughout life in the West Egg.

At this point in history, no matter where people are in the world, they are aware of

Wilma Rudolph, an American track and field sprinter, once said, “Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us” (“Wilma Rudolph Quote.”). The Great Gatsby starts off with the narrator Nick Carraway who is a nice young gentleman from the Midwest. He moves to the Midwest where he meets his neighbor James Gatz also know as, Jay Gatsby. Jay throws many lavish parties for Daisy, his longtime love that left him before the war. Gatsby sets up a tea date for Daisy at Nick’s house where Gatsby stops by. This leads to many days of Daisy stopping by and hanging out with Gatsby. Daisy never fully commits to Gatsby, but she gets his hopes up as long as it lasts. Her husband Tom has had many affairs with other women. One day Tom, Daisy, Nick, Gatsby, and Daisy’s friend, Jordan all go to the Plaza Hotel. Things get heated and Daisy leaves with Gatsby and accidently runs over Tom’s mistress, Myrtle. Tom tells, Myrtle’s husband, George that Gatsby was the one who killed Myrtle. He goes to Gatsby’s house and kills him then kills himself. The story ends with only three people showing up to Gatsby’s funeral and Nick moving back to the Midwest. In William Faulkner’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is great.

After World War I, America offered the potential for boundless financial and social opportunities for those willing to work hard—an American Dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on the economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity and or wealth and fame. Establishing fame, becoming wealthy, having lavish luxuries, and a happy family would come to symbolize this dream. For some, however, striving for and realizing that dream ruined them, as many acquired wealth only to pursue pleasure. Even though the characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby appear to relish the freedom of the 1920s, their lives demonstrate the emptiness that results when wealth and pleasure become ends in themselves. Specifically, the empty lives of three characters from this novel— George Wilson, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan—show that chasing hollow dreams results only in misery.

Scott Fitzgerald’s use of characterization and symbolism in The Great Gatsby denounces the superficial nature of the Roaring 20s and by doing so demonstrates the threat of materialism. First, through Tom and Daisy Buchanan’s wealth and lack of hard work to achieve their status exposes their lack of purpose. As a result, they attempt to occupy their boredom through their lavish lifestyle, but instead creates problems that they are immune to and exhibits their power-hungry personalities. Thus, good hearted people such as Gatsby is forced into becoming a materialistic man in order to achieve his American Dream of acquiring Daisy. Nonetheless, Gatsby’s disregard and sacrifice towards his identity and moral values only creates a fake representation of himself. In this manner, the use of the color yellow to decorate one’s self only represents that they are not the real deal and that they will never attain the gold, which symbolizes real wealth and prosperity. This sets a boundary between the old rich, the new money, and the lower class who will never be able to integrate within the gold-standard club. In this way, Fitzgerald denounces that on the surface the Roaring 20s is a synonym to prosperity, however beneath this cover, the American Dream has lost its values due to people’s lack of integrity, dignity, and