According to anonymous, ¨Colors speak louder than words.¨ Colors can allude to things without using any other words. Every color express emotions and states of mind. Having one color in a piece of work can have a multitude of meanings. They are truly the ultimate form of symbolism. Each color portrays different meanings and emotions. F. Scott Fitzgerald carefully choose colors to represent an emotion or idea, indicate social class, and expressed the multiple meanings behind colors. Colors have meanings in both the book and in different cultures. Each color symbolizes a feeling or an idea. For example when most think of the color blue ideas of sadness and cold weather come to mind. In the Great Gatsby blue also alludes to colder weather. For example when Fitzgerald wrote in the book, ¨So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 176) the blue symbolizes the cold weather coming. The blue in the book also represents the inner sadness of multiple characters. George Wilson had light blue eyes, Myrtle wore a dark blue dress, and the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg were blue. Each of these people experienced sadness. …show more content…
George Wilson had blue eyes because he was lower class and had an overall rough life. Myrtle Wilson wore blue only when she was with her husband because she was unhappy with him and their marriage. The eyes of T. J. Eckleburg were blue because they looked over the Valley of the Ashes representing God watching all of the hardship and the struggles of these people living in this wasteland. This is shown when F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, ¨. . . he [Wilson] was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. . . ´God sees everything,´ repeated Wilson¨ (Fitzgerald 160). While colors in the Great Gatsby may represent ideas and emotion they also indicate social class. Certain colors in the book hinted at characters social class. The color white was always associated with the old rich of East Egg. When the author described the Buchanans house he used the color white. This is seen when the author wrote, ¨The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house¨ (Fitzgerald 8). Fitzgerald used the color white everytime describing anyone that came from old money. When describing Daisy F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, ¨She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 74). White was used to describe because white is often seen as the purest color. Nothing has tainted or polluted white and it seems almost untouchable. The same idea goes along with the old rich as they are in their own world and frown upon people who may taint their reputations. The new rich in the book want to be like these old rich. F. Scott Fitzgerald associated the wannabes with the color cream. Cream represented all of the new rich wanting to fit in and be accepted by the old rich. He used the color cream because it is a wannabe white. Myrtle Wilson is an example of someone wanting to fit into the old rich world, and when Fitzgerald described her he wrote, ¨Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored chiffon. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 30). Other colors like red and pink have the same meanings of white and cream. Pink is not a pure primary color like red is so it is associated once again with the new rich wannabes. Gatsby was said to be wearing pink the most often out of the other characters. In the book it states, ¨´An Oxford man!´ He was incredulous. ´Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit¨ (Fitzgerald 122). Tom was implying that he was not really who he said he was because of his suit color. Red was used to describe the Buchanans house many times. The text states that in Tom and Daisy's house the ¨. . .crimson room bloomed with light¨ (Fitzgerald 17). The primary colors and non primary colors dealing with the old rich and new rich were a common theme throughout. Gatsby was almost always seen with these non primary colors like when Fitzgerald wrote, ¨. . .shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue¨ (Fitzgerald 92). Not a single of the colors of his shirts were true primary colors. The lavender, orange, and etcetera symbolized the fact that he was truly a new rich. Gray is also another color used throughout the Great Gatsby to indicate social class.
Gray was associated with the lower class and especially the Valley of Ashes. Everything in the Valley of Ashes is gray. According to the text, ¨Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track. . . and immediately the ash-gray men swarm. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 23). Oftentimes, when thinking of the color gray one thinks of something dirty or old. This is the perfect description of how Fitzgerald wants to portray the lower class in the Great Gatsby. The Valley of the ashes is the wasteland of America and constantly dirty and old and forgotten. It is the epitome of the how the lower class is perceived in this world. All of these colors have these meanings and different things they symbolize but they do not just mean or symbolize one
things. Colors have a sort of duality to them. They are able to have more than one meaning which can on different ends of the spectrum. For example when one thinks of the color yellow, what most often comes to mind is the positivity of sunshine and happiness. However yellow also has a more negative side to it. In the book the Great Gatsby the color yellow means caution there is something bad ahead. The yellow spectacles on the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg are an example of this. These eyes looking over the Valley of the Ashes were really a warning the whole that something horrible would happen. Everytime this color was wrote it was a bright warning sign that nothing would work out in the end. When Nick first met Jordan he noted the ¨. . . autumn-leaf yellow of her hair. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 17). Jordan Baker's hair served as the warning sign that her and Nick´s little romance was not going to work out. Green is another color that has multiple meanings. The most common association with green deals with nature and plantlife. However, in the Great Gatsby green represents something totally different. Green represents hopes and dreams. Green means to really go after these hopes and dreams. To Gatsby the green light across the bay represented everything he wanted in life. To him this light represented the life that he had been working for his entire life. This is shown in the text when, ¨. . . he [Gatsby] stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way. . . and distinguished nothing except a single green light. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 21). Gatsby was literally reaching out trying to grab his dream. The green light of Daisy's house was all the hope he had. Even when Gatsby was young he had the dream of becoming rich and fitting into that society. This is shown in the text, ¨It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants. . .¨ (Fitzgerald 98). Once again the green represents his hope. Like Nick had said in the book Gatsby probably has the most hope a person could possible ever have. Every single color in the Great Gatsby color portrays different meanings and emotions. The colors represented the emotions of characters, showed social class, and had a multitude of meanings.
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.
Daisy Buchanan is the preeminent female character in the story. Her name, Daisy fits her exceptionally, she is bright and sunny like the flower. Daisy is best represented by the color yellow. She’s the story’s golden girl, the wife of wealthy broker, and the love of the mysterious Gatsby’s life. Grok describes the color yellow as “Deities with glowing halos and golden hair…But it also evokes a few negative responses in associations with dishonesty, cowardice, egoism, betrayal, and caution” (Grok). Daisy is described physically as a blonde, and back then the style along women was the flapper headband, like the glowing halo. In the story Daisy is dishonest, she cheats on her husband with Gatsby. Daisy is also a coward, she couldn’t leave Tom, her husband, who treats her like property for Gatsby, who truly loves and idolizes her. Daisy once tells Nick when telling him about her daughter, “I hope she’ll be a fool. That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (1.17). Daisy is immensely obsessed with what people think of her, she likes being the girl who has this beautiful and graceful aura. This quote displays how she want’s her daughter to grow up to be just like her, the image of a weak foolish girl who lets men push her around. Betrayal is the emotion that Nick feels when she skips town instead of attending Gatsby’s funeral. Grok also writes that, “When paired with black, it suggests warning” (Grok). Gatsby is the color black, while Daisy is the color yellow. When the couple reconcile there is a multitude of trouble that eventually leads to the death of Myrtle, George, and Gatsby himself. Daisy isn’t just the bright ray of sunshine; she is also just as troublesome as Grok describes her, which is why th...
The Great Gatsby is full of symbolism. Colours, for example, are used to represent many different things; some even represent a theme of the novel. White, yellow, grey, green are just some of the colours which Fitzgerald uses in a special way, because each of these colours has a special meaning, different from the ones we regularly know or use.
In literature, colors are often purposefully chosen for different characters to represent the character’s personalities. In The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the colors green, yellow/gold, and gray are used to represent the attributes of the colored person or place.
Colors are very important in novels because they help the reader understand the deeper meaning of the topic. The Great Gatsby novel is one of the most well-known books ever to be written. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the narrator, Nick Carraway, describes a tragic story of a rich man, Jay Gatsby, in search for his true love, Daisy Buchanen. Daisy and Gatsby were previously in love, but Gatsby left for war and Daisy left him for more money. Jay Gatsby constantly throws extravagant parties hoping that his true love will visit one night and they will fall in love again. Instead, Nick Carraway invites Daisy and Gatsby to his house in hope that the old couple will connect again. Daisy and Gatsby finally fall in love again after several years of loneliness. Eventually, their love ends in disaster. In the novel, color symbolism plays an essential role in the novel.
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
Grey is a dull colour to begin with, so naturally it would make sense if Fitzgerald utilized that colour to symbolize as corruption. In The Great Gatsby is a place called The Valley of Ashes. “The ‘Valley of Ashes’…symbolizes the human situation in an age of chaos. It is ‘a certain desolate area of land’ in which ‘ash-grey men’ swarm dimly, stirring up ‘an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.’” (Dyson 113). Nick thinks of the place to be “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills into grotesque gardens” (Fitzgerald 23). And that is exactly what it is, since it’s a barren land of human waste. In The Valley of Ashes live Wilson and his wife Myrtle. The Valley of Ashes resembles something dark and lifeless. As a result of fire ashes stand for destruction and death. Furthermore the death of Myrtle Wilson in the Valley of Ashes stands for the pain and the corruption associated with this valley and the death of Myrtle Wilson. Also...
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.
The color black is often thought of as being sophisticated. When thinking of the color, people often relate it to death, intimidation, unfriendliness, and authority; however, it can relate to confidence, seduction, secrecy, and elegance as well. People exhibiting this behavior are naturally conservative and usually fear things beyond their control. An example of this type of person would be Tom Buchanan. Tom Buchanan’s demonstration of authority, fear of inferiority, and ability and willingness to keep himself and the ones he love hidden from others, all symbolize how the color black is represented within the novel.
Colors are a major part of literature, used in countless books and movies to help depict symbolism and themes. In The Great Gatsby, colors are used in abundance. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a multitude of colors ranging from grey to pink. However, three colors are used more frequently: green, gold, yellow, and pink. Fitzgerald uses a large amount of green, a color used in literature to represent money and fortune. However, throughout The Great Gatsby, green continuously represents hope and dreams. Fitzgerald also uses a surplus of yellow and gold throughout the book. Yellow typically symbolizes happiness and joy, but in The Great Gatsby yellow represents failure and death. In using gold, Fitzgerald represents fortune and power. The third
The green light at the end of Daisy's dock is the symbol of Gatsby's hopes and dreams. It represents everything that haunts and beckons Gatsby: the physical and emotional distance between him and Daisy, the gap between the past and the present, the promises of the future, and the powerful lure of that other green stuff he craves—money. In fact, the color green pops up everywhere in The Great Gatsby. Long Island sound is "green"; George Wilson's haggard tired face is "green" in the sunlight ; Michael is describes the car that kills Myrtle Wilson as "light green" (though it's yellow); Gatsby's perfect lawn is green; and the New World that Nick imagines Dutch explorers first stumbling upon is a "fresh, green breast." The symbolism of green throughout the novel is as variable and contradictory as the many definitions of "green" and the many uses of money—"new," "natural," "innocent," "naive," and "uncorrupted"; but also "rotten," "gullible," "nauseous," and "sickly."
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 one of, 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. When it comes to Gatsby, these colors represent him in many ways.
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 use of a green light at the end of a landing stage to signal a romantic
Many authors use color to symbolize personality and emotion. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby uses many descriptive phrases to clearly paint a picture of the characters and setting. Many of these descriptions tell the reader about feeling and personalities of the characters through color. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color to portray personality.