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Theme of the great Gatsby and how the author shows it in the book
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The Golden Woman: Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby
Colors in The Great Gatsby not only create vivid images of the novel’s setting but also represent the intersection between character and theme. Although most colors appear in the novel, the mentions of yellow and gold are significant, particularly in telling the story of wealth and longing that Fitzgerald emphasizes. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolizes yellow and gold as money and materialism, using these very colors to paint the female characters in his novel as possessions in the avaricious society of the Roaring Twenties.
By mentioning yellow both in relation to Gatsby’s party and the outfits of the guests in attendance, Fitzgerald draws a compelling parallel
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between the materialistic wealth of West Egg and the women who attend Gatsby’s parties. Through Gatsby’s parties, which are characterized by their colorful opulence and the rooms which are decorated with “gaudy… primary colors,” Fitzgerald makes a point of writing about gold and yellow elements (Fitzgerald 40). The music played by an orchestra is “yellow cocktail music,” and the food set out for guests is “bewitched to a dark gold” (40). Amidst this imagery, Nick meets a pair of girls in “twin yellow dresses” (42), whose yellow attire is paralleled in their surroundings. Though they do not play a role in the plot of the novel, they serve as a form of entertainment at Gatsby’s party as they perform a skit and play piano, effectively becoming objects of the wealthy party. In describing Jordan with colors that relate to gold, Fitzgerald associates the symbol of money with Jordan. Throughout the first part of the novel, Nick notes Jordan’s skin tone as “golden” (43), while her hair is described to be “an autumn-leaf yellow” (17). As evidenced by his descriptions of her, to Nick, Jordan is comparable to gold, a symbol of the money in the East. While he is, at first, as captivated with her just as he is by the parties and riches around him, after the events of the novel, he becomes disenchanted with both. This shift is represented in his description of her when they meet after he has left Jordan. Instead of describing her skin color as he did before, he notes in a simile that her face is “the same brown tint as the fingerless gloves on her knee” (177). Although Nick doesn’t treat her like an object, Fitzgerald’s descriptions of Jordan reveal her association with money in the novel. Although Daisy is already a character that is commonly pictured with wealth (as with her “little gold pencil” (105)), the descriptions of Daisy using the color gold build on her image as a rich character.
Daisy’s marriage to Tom is evidence of her association with money because she married Tom for his wealth rather than for love, and when explaining to Nick why he’s infatuated with Daisy, Gatsby calls her a “golden girl” in reference to her old money background and how that wealth affected the way she speaks and acts (120). Although women were treated differently on the basis of gender during the 1920s, Daisy is objectified due to both her wealth and gender. This obvious association with money influences the way characters in the novel treat Daisy. As a character, her ideas are brushed off due to her objectification which is evident in the way Tom asserts that Nick shouldn’t believe everything Daisy says. This is due to Tom’s knowledge on some level that Daisy stays with him due to his wealth. Also, the way Daisy wishes for her daughter to be “a beautiful little fool” indicates her own recognition that both she and her daughter are solely valued for their wealth and appearance (17). Thus, Daisy’s association with the color gold, and subsequently money, demonstrates her
objectification. In summary, Fitzgerald’s use of the colors yellow and gold emphasizes that women are merely objects of entertainment or affection in the world of The Great Gatsby. This ultimately influences the interactions between characters, along with building on the themes of materialism overall in the novel. The avarice in The Great Gatsby extends not only to the cars and mansions of the 1920s but to the women, adorned in yellow and gold.
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.
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.
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses many colors as symbols in his book, The Great Gatsby. Among them: silver, gold, and green are all colors that represent Gatsby. Not only that, but they also connect Gatsby to a major theme of the novel, The American Dream. Silver symbolizes and relates to Gatsby through his glamour, his mysteriousness, and his distinguished nature. Gold signifies Gatsby through his enormous amount of wealth, and how extravagantly he shows it off. Green has to do with Gatsby by illustrating his desires. The Great Gatsby is a great book that has endured for almost a century, and is a classic about the Jazz Age. It is filled with symbols and themes, describing what were the great times and hardships of the 1920s.
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.
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.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Colors in The Great Gatsby." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 May 2014. .
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 can be a symbol that many people overlook. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color imagery to describe the characters. Nick's neighbor, Jay Gatsby, is a mysterious man that lived in the past. Gatsby and Daisy have always loved each other, but Daisy also loves her brutal husband Tom. In a twist of events three people die and some you never hear from again. The Main character, Gatsby, is described using various colors including gold, pink, and blue.
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.
Daisy’s original impression of Gatsby is evident in her early letters to him, “...he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself- that he was fully able to take care of her” (149). Daisy loved Gatsby under the false hope that they belonged to the same social class. She grew up surrounded by riches, never working a day in her life, and she could not comprehend the struggles of a man who must work for the food he eats each day. Daisy knew that she must marry when she is beautiful, for being a beautiful rich girl of good social standing was her highest commodity and most valuable chip in marrying well. In order to live a secure life, she had to find someone the had the means to provide for her extravagant lifestyle, and the deep care for her that would allow Daisy to do as she pleased. The only definition of love Daisy knew was one of disillusioned power and commitments under false pretenses in order to keep the wealthy continually rich. Daisy acknowledges the false pretenses of marriage for the wealthy in how she describes her daughter’s future. She tells Nick, “‘And I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this
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.
Daisy is obsessed with materialistic items, causing her to chase wealth and be, in a way, a “gold digger.” Wealth is one of the main reasons she married tom, because she couldn’t wait any longer, had zero patience and as stated in the novel “she wanted her life molded now.” Daisy uses these materialistic items as an escape from reality or her real life problems. She is corrupted and brainwashed by this lavish way of life.