The Green Color In The Great Gatsby

The 1920’s time period was seemingly great. People who were affluent thrived, whereas others who were poor were not mentioned or noticed. Only the surface was perfect, not the inside. The rich society was filled with problems. The early 20th century was filled with parties, credit spendings and fake luxuries. Eventually, everything came out and turned into a great depression. The filth and corruption inside always appears and reveals itself, often seen through people’s actions. The interesting thing is that the main character's life in The Great Gatsby had also taken the tendencies of the time period, he truly was the person of his time. At first, all that was known about the character was his wealth, the intersting rumors, and his glorious

parties. With the plot advancement, the truth is shown and the story turns into a “depression” because the main character is murdered. Through the development of the main character, the author is able to achieve something greater – he is able to express the whole time period. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color symbolism to meaningfully express his ideas and show the cruelty of the world because with each color, he gives special emotions and definition.
The green light on Daisy’s porch is a symbol of hope, an unattained dream, and the future.

This is the most noticeable example of green in the book because it is mentioned by the author in the very first chapter and continuously extends throughout the entire book. At first this color reminds the reader of money, because today people have green dollar bills, but it is a misconception. An object that more clearly relates to the interpretation of the that color in the book is a stop light. The green color means go, representing Gatsby reaching out for his dream. The first time Nick sees Gatsby out of his dock, he recalls the memory as, “...he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness” (Fitzgerald 20). Gatsby trembles with hope and excitement because his dream seems so close, and he was even able to picture himself achieving it. The color green is very fitting in this situation. Many artists paint nature scenes, excluding the details and only focusing on the greens as the color creates a peaceful mood and state of mind. Gatsby is, in a way, peaceful inside because he is close to his lover. He is sure that it is only a matter of time before he will

meet Daisy. Gatsby is also calm because he did everything he could to attain his lover. He figured out that he had to get rich to win Daisy back and stopped at nothing, not even by getting dragged into illegal businesses. His dream was practically impossible to achieve because it seems that only the reader and Nick see the truthful circumstances and the crushing point of Gatsby’s hope for the future. Therefore, the green light is the unattainable dream that Gatsby had.
The color white often represents innocence, nobleness and femininity in The Great Gatsby.

This color always stands out. For example, many artists use it to draw attention to something in their paintings. Fitzgerald uses the same practice mentioned, using the color white to draw attention to very important features of the characters. One time when the white color stood out and played an important role in portraying a character's image, was the first time Gatsby met Daisy after five years, “An hour later the front door opened nervously and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold colored tie hurried in” (Fitzgerald 89). In this scene, Gatsby is shown as a child. He is so excited to meet Daisy, overflowed with joy that he can’t control his actions and thus doesn’t act like an adult. The white color adds to the innocence and purity of Gatsby’s mood. Most of the time, white is associated with Daisy and other women. As Nick was recalling the first time he went over to Daisy’s house, he stated: “Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire” (14). Daisy commonly wears white dresses to show her “innocence and nobleness,” but she was only trying to create an image that she liked. In reality, she was probably one of the worst, heartless and careless people so it is obvious that she merely pretends to

be innocent. In The Great Gatsby, white doesn’t have a single function because it has many shades that differently portray characters and makes them stand out in a different light.
In the book, Fitzgerald mostly talks about the wealthy people, and he barely touches the surface of existence of the middle class which creates the background. The middle class was in a bad condition, so he uses the color grey, which expresses the lifelessness and loneliness, just like an artist that uses grey just to fill the space and not attract attention: "Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight" (23). The middle classes greyness represents the inside of the Gilded people; almost all of those who were rich were at the same time empty and immoral with Nick thinking Gatsby as the exception. Today many people associate grey and dark colors with pollution, something that you have to clean or make it disappear in order to be better. It was same with the inside of the society during the Gilded age, as it needed to be cleared to solve the problem for the middle class and to create a better society overall.
The unusual method to express characters and theme allows the reader to compare Fitzgerald to a painter. With the use of colours, the author created his own way of interpreting life. The uniqueness of his style lead Fitzgerald to fame. The main colors that the reader notices are white, green, grey. They help the reader to imagine and get feelings associated with the color. With characters like Gatsby and Daisy, the meaning of the colors is obvious, if it’s fake or real. Essentially, all of the characters are corrupted either by feelings, money, jealousy or other negative things. The tendency of repetition of colors makes it easier to understand society’s problems and reveals the whole situation in the American culture during that certain time period of the Gilded Age.