Symbols and Symbolism - Heat as a Symbol in The Great Gatsby

Heat as a Symbol in The Great Gatsby

Symbolism plays an important role in any novel of literary merit. In his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays a superior use of symbols such as color, light, and heat. Fitzgerald’s superior use of heat as a symbol is the focus of this essay.

“When F. Scott Fitzgerald turns on the heat in Gatsby, he amplifies a single detail into an element of function and emphasis that transforms neutral landscapes into oppressive prisms” (Dyson 116). Through these prisms, which distort and color the lives of Fitzgerald's characters, we see why human's elations are, as Nick Carraway describes them, "shortwinded". Heat is the antithesis of Jay Gatsby. It is symptomatic of his undoing, his nemesis. As he suited up in his cool demeanor time and time again, perhaps we should have guessed that his coldly methodical plan to restore the past would end up, in the sizzling heat of a showdown, “as useless as one of the spent match-heads Daisy flings so carelessly after lighting a cigarette” (Dyson 121).

From midafternoon at the Buchanan palace to twilight at the Plaza Hotel, Fitzgerald's emphasis on the oppressive heat sticks out as clearly as Gatsby's pink suit against Daisy's crimson carpet. It is an emphasis that has a cumulative effect of placing characters into a setting they cannot escape and into a situation that reflects their internal discomfort. The plot heats up as the setting heats up, furthering suspense while placing untested characters in such boiling heat that their lives can find expression only in explosive release or resignation. Their tempers flare as the temperature rises and it is not until they lose their composure that anything begins to cool. I...

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...ened once Daisy and Gatsby left the Plaza. To the fair-weather princess, their passions had become too heated. Theirs was, after all, an early summer love, and the fair-weather was no more.

Works Cited and Consulted

Bewley, Marius. "Scott Fitzgerald's Criticism of America." Modern Critical Interpretations: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 11-27.

Dyson, A. E. "The Great Gatsby: Thirty-Six Years After." Mizener 112-24.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. England: Penguin, 1990.

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes. New York: Pantheon, 1994.

Tanner, Tony. "Introduction." The Great Gatsby. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald. England: Penguin, 1990. vii-lvi.

Way, Brian. "The Great Gatsby." Modern Critical Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 87-108.