Use of Symbolism in "The Catcher in the Rye" and "The Great Gatsby"

One would often think of wealth or a high social status. However, it can be closely associated with Autumn leaves which die and decay. Therefore, yellow also symbolizes death and decay. Gatsby buys a yellow car to show Daisy he is wealthy now and that she will not lose her social status if she marries him. One day, Daisy is driving Gatsby’s car back home with him, “The ‘death car’ as the newspapers called it, didn’t stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment and then disappeared around the next bend” (Fitzgerald 144). The car was Gatsby’s yellow car that ran over and killed Myrtle Wilson. The author uses the color yellow to foreshadow death nearby. Another day, Gatsby was walking to his pool with a pneumatic mattress in hand, “Once he stopped and shifted it a little and the chauffeur asked him if he needed help, but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees” (Fitzgerald 169). This happens right before Gatsby is shot and killed by Mr. George Wilson. The note of yellowing trees foreshadows Gatsby’s death. The color yellow is used in “The Great Gatsby” to symbolize materialism and death. Fitzgerald uses colors to foreshadow events and hint at a larger meaning of an object.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, The Great Gatsby, exposes the corruption and greed of the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald is able to captivate readers' attentions through his employment of color symbolism. Fitzgerald portrays important messages in the novel by his symbolic use of colors. Colors play an important role in Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the lives of Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway and many of the other characters in the novel. Fitzgerald uses the colors white, yellow, and green to express certain sentiments to the reader, commenting what is going on in the story. Fitzgerald uses the color white to symbolize purity and innocence, while yellow is used to symbolize moral decay, and death. Green is used to represent hope and

Symbolism is arguable one of the most important literary devices in all of literature. Not only is it used to help explain key plot points in a story, but it is also used to highlight certain aspects in a story you might not have noticed originally. In the novel The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses symbolism through color to express mood, different characters, and a variety of themes though the story. Colors like white, yellow, and blue each have their own meanings to be explored by not only the readers of the paper, but the readers of the book.

Gatsby’s world was filled with the yellow of corruption. He drove a yellow Rolls-Royce, the car that caused the death of Myrtle Wilson. At his lavish parties on West Egg Island, yellow cocktail music played as hordes of guests, including two girls in twin yellow dresses took part in illegal drinking and promiscuity. Jay Gatsby had mob ties in the city of Chicago, and when Nick returned to the Midwest, the sight of the murky yellow cars of Chicago rooted itself in his memory. Gatsby was a man who knew what he wanted and did not care to do whatever it took to acquire it. He would resort to terrible activities such as bootlegging and lies. He did anything to get the wealth that he thought would win over Daisy Buchanan. Fittingly, the last time Gatsby was seen alive, he "disappeared among the yellowing trees (167)."

F. Scott Fitzgerald creatively utilizes colors throughout his novel, The Great Gatsby, not only to provide the reader with a rich visual image of the scene taking place, but also to convey certain symbols within the story. To begin with, one must understand what each color symbolizes. Green symbolizes hope, blue symbolizes illusion, red means violence or love, yellow illustrates wealth or death, white is innocence, and gray or black symbolizes corruption. The reader can see that color symbolism is used to characterize Tom Buchanan. Another character, Daisy Buchanan, is also associated with a few different colors. The usage of colors in The Great Gatsby conveys many ideas―personalities of the characters, foreshadowing, events in the story,

Symbolism is the use of symbols to supply things with a representative meaning or to represent something abstract by an existing object. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, colours are used to symbolize a person’s inner thoughts and feelings. Colours, such as green, white are used to find ones true feelings; while others use colours to hide their true persona. Colour symbolism is used to convey a deeper message to the readers and help us understand the characters true colours.

Yellow represents money and greed but it peculiarly represents death as well. The color yellow can be seen at two of the deaths in the book. The yellow Rolls-Royce owned by Gatsby that killed Myrtle, it is discernible that yellow was involved with the death of Myrtle. Another way yellow is shown through death is when Gatsby walked past the yellowing trees that were on the way to his pool before he was killed by George Wilson. “Gatsby shouldered the mattress and headed for the pool. Once he stopped and shifted it a little and the chauffeur asked him if he needed any help, but he shook his head and in a moment disappeared among the yellowing trees.” (Fitzgerald p.169). This shows the color yellow playing a role in death once again. At the parties you can tell that yellow is apparent. The “yellow cocktail music” and the “girls in yellow dresses” are too ways that show that Gatsby tries to fit in with “old money.” Yellow or gold deals with the real money, gold of course, while green would be considered new money. It is also humorous that Daisy which is a yellow flower is also the most impure character in the book.

A symbol can be anything that represents something else in a story or something that has a deep effect on the story. Symbols can be an object, a character, an animal, a color, etc. Being a great writer, Fitzgerald has used symbols in a very effective manner. In Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has been in love with Daisy for a quite long time. While he was at the war, she marries a rude yet a rich guy named Tom Buchanan. Desiring to win her back, Gatsby transmutes himself into a wealthy person. He conducts parties every weekend hoping to see her there. Finally, when she meets him, everything turns out badly. Fitzgerald, in this novel uses various symbols to make it more fascinating and these symbols mainly represents the life in America in the 1920’s and the American dream.

     F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, uses symbolism throughout the novel to create the characters and events of the post World War I period. Colors are one way symbolism was used to develop the characters’ personalities and set up events. This is shown by colors like the green at the end of Daisy Buchannan’s dock, the color of Jay Gatsby’s car and how Myrtle and Jordan surrounded themselves by white. Other symbolisms used to set up events are the difference in the people of the West Egg and East Egg and the sign in the “valley of ashes”.

"Never has symbolism played such a crucial part in the very foundation of a novel as it does in Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, The Great Gatsby." Harold Bloom has written about this book. The author used several types of symbolism in The Great Gatsby. The colours are probably the easiest to be recognized and guessed what they symbolized. According to the definition “symbolism” is "the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships."

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.

In every piece of great literature authors use symbols to convey a feeling or thought. The novel, For example, Lord the Flies, William Golding memorably uses a conch shell to represent order and the destruction of order. Or in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the physical and metaphoric sense of the mockingbird to convey the idea of innocence and the loss of innocence. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald employs the use of symbols to enhance a tragic tale of the corruption and decay of the American dream in the 20s. Three powerful symbols employed by Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby area green-light, the valley ashes and the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to represent dreams and their unattainability, moral decay and decay of life, and the eyes of god watching us.

A symbol is an object or idea which has alternate or metaphorical meaning, it is an something which can be interpreted into themes and messages which the author wants to convey, and with repeated instances of said symbol , its significance becomes more relevant. In the Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, the use of symbolism reflects the futility of the American Dream. The American Dream is a theme throughout the novel, how the idea of hard work coming to fruition as money is a novel idea that many follow in the book, however according to Fitzgerald it is a fruitless endeavor. In the novel, the author uses the following symbols to convey the message of the futility of the American Dream, these symbols are: the colour green, the Valley of Ashes, and the Eyes of Doctor TJ Eckleburg.

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”(Ch7.pt.2) Golden used again to represent the greed, luxury and money Daisy is used to having. Apart from meaning materialism, wealth, and luxury yellow also means death. Myrtle, Tom's mistress is killed by Gatsby Yellow car, “It was a yellow car,” he said, “big yellow car. New.”(Ch.7,pt.5). Yellow/ Gold isn't the only color that is representative of “The Great Gatsby”. Green plays a significant role, representing Gatsby's dream. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”(Ch.9, pt.3) Gatsby’s dream is an ungraspable dream, that is represented by the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had