Color Red In The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, colors play a big role in the story as it leaves overlaying connections throughout the plot. The most significant colors that affected the story were the colors yellow, red, and white. The first major color is the color yellow which is associated with wealth. Throughout the story there are multiple cases of where Tom Buchanan shows his wealth. For example, Gatsby’s yellow car, “It was a yellow car...a yellow big car. New.” Gatsby’s wealth is shown here with this new yellow car and seems that Gatsby has a desire to become a part of the high class society of the people from East Egg. Yellow can also be seen as a replacement gold for people that can not afford it. In addition, this

This color red is associated with sin, which can be readily seen all throughout the story. For example, when Nick is leaving Tom’s house he saw, “in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light.” In this scene red represents the blood from Myrtle’s death and the pool foreshadows the murder of Gatsby. In addition, the color red represented blood and sin and this could be seen in the scene where Tom hits Myrtle because she was having a fuss about why she should be able to talk about Daisy whenever she wanted. After Tom got tired of her being defiant he struck her and broke her nose and the scene afterwards was described as, “Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain.” This scene is very important because it shows that Myrtle is considered tainted and impure because Tom is willing to hit her if he must. But, in the case of Daisy, he might hit her but would never break her nose because she is a pure, unbred trophy wife. Moreover, the color red is represented through the sinful actions that occur throughout the novel and is the representation of the crime stained