What Does The Color Gold Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

Colors play a major role in our lives whether we know it or not. Some people think everyone sees every color differently, but no matter how we see them they mean something to us. Different colors can have different meanings depending on the person and their location. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he uses color symbolism to foreshadow and represent ideas throughout the story. Fitzgerald mainly uses the colors gold, white, and green to tell the story through the eyes of someone living during the same time period as the novel.

In Fitzgerald’s novel, the use of the color gold is to represent wealth, joy, success, preciousness, and death. Gold plays a major role throughout the novel and is seemed to be valued. One use of the color gold occurs when Nick is speaking to Jordan, “With Jordan’s slender

golden arm resting in mine” (Fitzgerald 43).

In this quotation, the use of gold towards Jordan’s arm shows that it is valuable because she is an amazing golf player. Gold here represents something valuable and helps the reader understand how well of a golfer Jordan seems to be to the public. Fitzgerald also uses gold to represent happiness. The use of the color gold appears again when opening windows in the house, "we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with grey-turning, gold-turning light" (Fitzgerald 144). The use of gold here represents happiness because it shows the sunlight coming of as beautiful rays of golden sunlight. The weather in the novel represents the characters’ emotions, so if it is sunny (golden) then the characters are happy. In the novel, Gatsby, a main character, is often associated with the color gold for his wealth. “Yellow is the color of gold, which symbolizes money, materialism and high social position” (Haibing). In this quotation, Haibing goes on to explain how the color gold represents a high social position. This proves why Fitzgerald

would associate the color gold with Gatsby than any other character because he is very well known. Lastly, the color gold is associated with death in “The Great Gatsby” through Gatsby himself, “Before Gatsby was shot by Wilson, it was depicted that he refused the chauffeur’s help and disappeared among the yellowing trees in a moment…” (Haibing). Yellow (Gold) is used here to represent the death of Gatsby. The quotation itself is saying that all the money he had couldn’t save him from what was coming. Therefore the color gold also represents death.
Within the novel, the color green is used abundantly and represented hope, old money, present or traditional ideas, and the end of the American Dream. Daisy, Gatsby’s crush, is the character most often associated with the color green. Nick, the narrator, is speaking about his surroundings when, "I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light" (Fitzgerald 25). Gatsby purposefully bought a house close to Daisy when he had the money in hopes to win her over. His view of her property contained this green light which gave him hope and motivation every day. This shows how the color green is associated with the hope that Gatsby contains towards winning Daisy over. The color green is also partnered with something that isn’t faded, "In the sunlight his face was green" (Fitzgerald 117). In this quotation the sunlight is beating down on Gatsby’s face reflecting off a greenish color. This represents how the hope of Gatsby for Daisy hasn’t faded. In simpler terms, it means that Gatsby’s hope for winning Daisy over is nowhere near fading. As Gatsby meets Daisy again, his hope begins to disappear, “Gatsby has successfully shown his enormous fortune to Daisy and Daisy begins to cry stormily when she faces Gatsby’s incredible wealth. And Gatsby said to Daisy that ‘You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.’” (Haibing). This quotation leads to Gatsby realizing that the real Daisy is different from the one he imagined/ first met. Therefore the color green here represents the hope of Gatsby slowly fading due to Daisy not living up to expectations. Gatsby was the only character throughout the novel that used the green light as hope and when he died is where things went wrong, “With the death of Gatsby, the people who holds the faith in the light is not existed anymore, which indicates the disillusionment of the American Dream” (Haibing). This quotation proves the color green representing the end of the american dream because Gatsby, the only believer in the green light and character representing the american dream, dies.
In the novel, Fitzgerald uses the color white to represent honor, pureness, and cleanliness. When Nick first arrives in New york he visits his cousin daisy, "They were both in white" (Fitzgerald 13). Nick meets Daisy and Jordan for the first time at this gathering and both the girls are wearing white. This represents their innocence/purity because at this point Nick knows nothing of their pasts and cannot assume they are not innocent or pure. Fitzgerald also uses the color white in her novel when Daisy is touring Gatsby’s castle, "High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl" (Fitzgerald 115). Fitzgerald uses white to describe Gatsby’s castle in this situation because she makes it seem as if Gatsby is clean or did clean for Daisy. Although she refers to the castle being clean, it can be assumed that Gatsby has cleaned up his act for Daisy so that he could have the chance to win her back. Therefore, white represents cleanliness and purity based off of analysis from Fitzgerald’s words. However, the color white can also be interpreted to represent beauty, “White represents the immaculate and pure beauty” (Haibing). Gatsby throughout the novel refers to Daisy as one of the most beautiful women to ever live and he cherishes that. This quotation supports how white represents that because most of Daisy’s items are white. The color white can also be interpreted as selfishness. White represented through selfishness actually occurs frequently throughout the story, especially if one reads between the lines. “Describing Daisy with the color of white, it indicates that under the pure and beautiful appearance, Daisy owns a superficial, hollow, cold and selfish heart inside” (Haibing). Daisy throughout the novel and as she is described spends most of her time buying luxury items and doing random tasks because she is bored. This supports how white represents selfish because Daisy, the character most associated with the color white, wants everyday to revolve around her trying new things to do to fill her boredom. In conclusion, the color white represents purity, cleanliness, beauty, and selfishness in the novel “The Great Gatsby”.
As supported, Fitzgerald uses lots of example of color symbolism to get simple and sly messages across to the reader. She connects these colors back to how people associate them in our world that we all know and love. Gold represents wealth, joy, success, preciousness, and death. Green represents hope, old money, unfaded ideas, and the end of the american dream. White represents purity, cleanliness, beauty, and selfishness. All together these colors come together to help contribute to a great novel. In conclusion, everyone may see colors differently but could contain the same meaning. Color is a big part of life whether you know it or not. The effect color has on the world is an amazing thing and will never end.