More handpicked essays just for you.
F scott fitzgerald and his impact on american literature
F scott fitzgerald and his impact on american literature
Essays on symbolism in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
What is color? That's a very broad questions because color can be anything. Color can be defined as the characteristic of human visual perception described through categories, or it can be used it other ways. For example it could be used as a literary device to represent and show hidden meaning in a literary work. In the book, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald color symbolism plays an essential role in the novel. There’s countless times that the colors green, white, and gold are used.
The most notable and significant color in the novel is the color green. To Gatsby green represents his dreams, his aspiration which is to attain Daisy for himself. As said by Nick Carraway “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that
…show more content…
year by year recedes before us” (Fitzgerald 180). Green symbolizes hope. “Nick Carraway emphasizes this point by speculating that new immigrants must have seen America as they approached it in the same way as Gatsby sees that dock light”(Magher).
Gatsby is fixated on the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock and is seen countless times with outreached arms towards the green light. His dreams seem just too far out of reach for even the wealthiest man there is. Another time green is included is when Fitzgerald describes Gatsby’s car and how it embodies Gatsby's true self. The exterior of the car is said to be “gorgeous”. The car “was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there with its monstrous length”(Fitzgerald 64). The exterior of the car is yellow and accordingly, Gatsby's showed personality to others showcases his cheery optimism which can also be described by a warm vibrant color. The interior of the car however is described to have “many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory”(Pagelkopf) . The interior of Gatsby’s car is green and the outer yellow. The yellow exterior mirrors his cheery outer facade and the green …show more content…
interior mirrors his inner discontent, desire for wealth, and jealous lust for Daisy. The last biggest impact of green in the story is the color of the car that killed Myrtle. Wilson’s neighbor Michaelis said the “death car” was light green (Fitzgerald 137). The author purposely depicted the car to be green to showcase the moral and carelessness of Daisy, who was behind the wheel at the time. Besides the color green there are many other colors used throughout the novel to represent hidden meanings. The color white is meant to signify light, sincerity and softness. The most notable time white is used is when getting married. Brides pick out there elegant and flowy dresses and there's always a similarity between them. They all are white. The intentions of this is to appear classy and divine. For these reasons when Fitzgerald writes about Daisy and Jordan he intentionally describes them wearing the color white. A prime example of this is on page 8 “The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed….They were both in white, and there dresses were rippling and fluttering”(Fitzgerald 8). Fitzgerald purposely describes them as wearing white to represent their innocence and purity. However some speculate a more sinister side. Since the characters in the book are morally corrupt, when they wear white, it is in an attempt to appear pure to make an impression”(Magher). For example Nick Carraway goes over to Gatsby’s “dressed up in white flannels” (Fitzgerald 41). He does this because Nick wanted to make a good first impression on his upper class neighbor. Finally the color white is also used to represent class division in the novel. When the narrator Nick Carraway first arrives at the home of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, “the home – and the characters -- are bathed in white. The Buchanan home is white and red, the windows are described as “gleaming white”(Brozak). White is being used here to convey the difference between West and East Egg. This is the first time that white is used to compare the two eggs to each other. Fitzgerald uses white to contrast the “unfashionable” mansions of West Egg and the “Fashionable” Palaces of East Egg (Brozak). The last observable color that Fitzgerald consistently uses is gold.
Since the beginning of time gold has symbolized wealth. From the time of 3100 bc such civilizations like Egyptians have crafted jewelry and ancient tombs out of gold. Even to this day watches and accessories are made out of gold. It’s an awareness that those who wear gold are prosperous. Fitzgerald shows a character being well of by making them own and wear certain colors. Jordan Baker is a professional golfer and when Nick Carraway first sees her he describes her as having a slender and athletic build with autumn leaf colored hair. As a pro golfer your out in the sun most of the time and as a result become tan. Nick says Jordan had “slender golden arms”(Fitzgerald 42). The use of gold is to symbolize her wealth and status as a golfer coming from old money. Another character surrounded by gold is Gatsby. He holds marvellous and extravagant parties at his house as a way to impress Daisy. Everything is over the top and glamourous from the decorations to the dinner selections. “On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’oeuvre, spice baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold”(Fitzgerald 40). The surplus of food and the addition of fitzgerald to incorporate the color of gold even into the food suggests the overwhelming wealth of Gatsby and his upper class position. Gold also plays a key role in social classes. In the Great Gatsby there’s
new money and old money. Gatsby himself is new money. New money is the term given to those who are new to wealth. Daisy on the other hand is old money which is a term used for those who have had wealth in their families for a long time. Some speculate that Gatsby isn't actually after Daisy but instead her position in society as old money. Nick then states that Daisy is “the golden girl” (Pagelkopf). She’s someone everyone wants for their own but only the highest in society will win her over. You could consider Daisy to be untouchable and unattainable. In conclusion Fitzgerald’s use of color in The Great Gatsby helps the novel showcase certain ideas, beliefs and relations between characters. The use of gold symbolizes wealth and upper class, the color white symbolizes purity and innocence and the color green symbolizes hope and jealousy. Since children we were taught the colors and associated items and emotions with them. Authors use this idea and make colors have a symbolic meaning to them. Even commercials/ads use a similar concept. They may use certain colors that appease to their audience, for example the color blue as a means of calming or trust. Colors are essential to everyday life. They can give meaning even to the dullest of things.
Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby & nbsp; Colors can symbolize many different things. Artists use colors in their paintings when they want you to see what they are trying to express. Like if an artist is trying to express sorrow or death. he often uses blacks, blues, and. grays. Basically he uses dreary colors. You automatically feel what the artist is trying to express. When the artist uses bright colors you feel warm and you feel happiness. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald is like an artist. He uses colors to symbolize the many different intangible ideas in the book. He uses the color yellow to symbolize moral decay, decadence, and death. Then he uses the color white to symbolize innocence. He also uses the color green to express hope. Fitzgerald's use of the color green the strongest.
Apparently, green is the most prominently used color in the novel. The reason for this may be that green is the color used to describe the main character of the novel, Jay Gatsby. One of the possible meanings of green in this story is envy. Gatsby can be seen as an envious man for a few reasons. For one, he is extremely envious of Tom Buchanan because of the fact that he has the one thing he can’t buy, Daisy. Also, Gatsby is extremely envious of the people that he invites to his house. He knows that he is not old money like the people he invites to his parties. This makes him a man of who, is “Green with envy.”
Colors are everywhere. They make up everything we see. Lots of times they are associated with feelings, emotions, characteristics, etc. In his book, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes many colors as symbols to represent many feelings, passions, and descriptions. Each color has its own symbol, some have obvious ones like grey embodying lifelessness; however, some have more hidden meanings as black exemplifies the destruction of negativity (people usually think of black as more of a negative color in general). A color that represents Gatsby, and the Jazz Age as a whole very well, is the color silver, and it means glamorous and mysterious; distinguished, which is an excellent description of the 20s and Mr. Gatsby, himself. The color Green also represents Gatsby well because green in the novel means something of desire that has a possibility of being unattainable. Gold is a third color that personifies Gatsby, as it represents riches and extravagance in the novel, which is what Gatsby is known for. All these colors and symbols all connect to one of the themes of the book, which is the (idea) of The American Dream.
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us”(Fitzgerald 171). Whenever Gatsby looks at Daisy’s green light, he thinks of a bright future with his love of his life. The color green symbolizes Gatsby’s desire for a future with Daisy. Green also symbolizes Gatsby’s desire for great wealth. Nick describes Gatsby’s car as a “green leather conservatory” because the interior is green (Fitzgerald 64).
Symbolism is immensely spread through this novel, as well as an immerse amount of color. For example, the green light gatsby strives for. Gatsby states that the "single green light" on Daisy's dock that Gatsby gazes wistfully at from his own house across the water represents the "unattainable dream," the "dream [that] must
Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism and colors in The Great Gatsby is prominent in every chapter of his novel. To fully understand the meaning of his color use, a reader must recognize the situations in which these colors are used. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald uses the color green. Green has many possible interpretations, and its’ use to reveal insight into Gatsby’s character is probably the most meaningful.
Upon first impression, one might believe Jay Gatsby is nothing more than a self-satisfied, well-to-do bachelor living in luxury in West Egg. However, as his story unfolds, the reader finds out that he is an industrious man and a hopeless dreamer. The quintessential colors of yellow, green, and blue are used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to describe Gatsby’s characteristics in his magnum opus, The Great Gatsby. Yellow, an incandescent color, stands for his vivacious outward disposition, the shallow people around him, and his seemingly self-indulgent spending habits, for which he has an ulterior motive. Green represents the extreme lifestyle changes Gatsby has made in adulthood and his staunch hopefulness in finding love. Blue is a symbol of the
For most people, a certain colour may represent something meaningful to them. While in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, many of the colours used in the novel are meant to represent something. The novel’s setting is in East and West Egg, two places in New York. Our narrator, Nick Carraway, lives in the West Egg. Along with living in West Egg is a friend of Nick’s, Jay Gatsby; a character that is in love with Daisy Buchanan. Unfortunately, Daisy is married to Tom. As the plot unravels, the reader notices the connection between certain colours and their importance to the novel. The use of colours within The Great Gatsby symbolizes actual themes, as grey symbolizes corruption, blue symbolizes reality, and green symbolizes jealousy and envy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald used the imagery of colors in his masterpiece The Great Gatsby. The colors are used very frequently as symbols, and the hues create atmosphere in different scenes of the book. White is a clean and fresh color, but the author shows how it can be tainted as well. Next, yellow illustrates the downfall of moral standards of the people of West Egg. Lastly, green, the most dominant color in the book, symbolizes wealth and Gatsby's unattainable dream.
Colors, are something to be determine, not just colors, they mean many things depending on the way people analyze them. Colors are important in life, not only in life but also in books. One book that really describes that is The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, colors represent many different things. One of the major colors are yellow and gold. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald describes these colors and associates them with different things. For example, gold represents real wealth and yellow represents fake gold. Fitzgerald associates colors with different things by really describing them in depth. For example, the green light at Daisy’s is just a green light, but Fitzgerald made it so that it would represent much more than that and that is what made The Great Gatsby such a great novel. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald associates yellow and gold in depth with different things. In life people sometimes make bad decisions and do bad things to gain money. Very similar to the novel, where Jay Gatsby gains money from bad ways, while he could have gained it from good ways.
Throughout history, colors have been used as symbols in literature. When people see or hear certain colors, they automatically associate them with symbols and feelings. For example, red is love, blue is sadness, and purple is royalty. Many of these symbols are universal. You could go anywhere in the world and ask someone how yellow makes them feel, and they would say happy. Some great examples of color symbolism are in the novel The Great Gatsby. Well-known symbols as well as new meanings are used to enrich the story. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, he used the colors gold, white, green and blue to symbolize deeper meanings.
The green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock symbolizes Gatsby’s lust for wealth and power, and also his dream of having Daisy. The interpretation that stands out the most of any is that green is the color of money, therefore Gatsby’s motivations are fueled by the wealthy status of someone on the East Egg that he would wish to have as well. However, just like his dreams, the light is very “minute and far away” (30). Gatsby throws lavish parties, lives his life in luxury, and fools himself into believing he is upper c...
In the book The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a vast amount of colors to represent characters in the book. For instance, Gatsby is, if not, the main character in the book. Every single color in the book has to do with Gatsby. The three main colors in this book or most used colors are red, yellow, and black. These three colors seem to have the most meaning.
The Great Gatsby is full of symbolism, colors, for example. Throughout the book the author uses them to represent different themes of the novel. Some of these colors are white, yellow, grey, green, pink, red and blue. However, I picked white and green for my commentary because I think these colors have a special meaning different from the others. White is mainly used to describe the character’s innocence, fakeness, and corruption. While green represents Gatsby’s hopes, ambitions, and dreams. In addition, sometimes green symbolizes the jealousy of certain characters.
The color green can signify many things in the every day life, people may think of it as “go” or as something positive. F. Scott Fitzgerald is an author known to use a lot of symbolism in his writings. In his famous novel, “the Great Gatsby”, Fitzgerald uses the color green to represent various things. His use of the color green represents mostly what Gatsby desires most in life, but he also includes it to represent little things that need thinking to figure out.