How Fitzgerald uses Colors in his Novels to Manipulate the Reader

Writers and artists often use color to manipulate the reader into feeling certain emotions; they can make the audience experience pain, joy and sorrow by using a palette of colors in their work. While color is often used to set a mood or create an ambiance, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes it to reveal and develop underlying themes. He cleverly crafts his most popular novel by incorporating colors to reveal the underlying messages in The Great Gatsby such as the tendencies of the rich, Daisy and Gatsby’s growing relationship and the acts of injustice towards the Wilsons.

In the novel, Fitzgerald uses the color white to illustrate the affluent and their carelessness, specifically Daisy and Tom Buchanan. Instead of representing purity and innocence, Fitzgerald uses the color white to illustrate the wealthy when he first introduces Daisy and Jordan as being “…buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both dressed in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been back in after a short flight around the house” (24). The significance of Daisy and Jordan’s wardrobe is relative to the culture of the times, as it was common for the wealthy to adopt “summer white as a symbol of their leisure...the only people suited to wear white were people who didn't work at all…” (Chertoff 1). He uses the opulent wearing white to emphasize the fact that the Buchanan family and Jordan did not work; they were rich and wealthy without a care in the world. In this introductory scene, Fitzgerald utilizes color to establish the wealthy class these main characters fall into. In addition, Fitzgerald uses white to develop Daisy and Tom’s character, such as when Nick reflects that “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy...

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...son’s resources and left him to fend for himself. Both Wilsons were used and then thrown away into the gray lonely land of the valley of ashes, the emblem of the rich indulging themselves in their own amusement.
Fitzgerald uses a myriad of colors to reveal the subtle themes such as the characteristics of the wealthy, Daisy and Gatsby’s developing relationship and the roles of the Wilsons in his novel, The Great Gatsby. His remarkable attention for detail and color is what makes this novel transcend above most narratives written during his time. The color in the novel tells a story in itself; the story of the careless, the trusted and the used.

Works Cited

Chertoff, Emily. "The Atlantic." TheAtlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 7 Aug 2012. Web.
28 Jul 2013.

Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. Print.