Green shows many thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and choices that Gatsby has throughout the story. White represents the stereotypical façade that every character is hiding behind.
The color green, as it is used in the novel, symbolizes different choices the character, Gatsby, can make during his life. The green element in this novel is taken from the green light at the end of the dock near Daisy’s house. The color itself represents serenity, as in everything is perfect. This warns Gatsby that he should not pursue his dream for getting Daisy back, because his chance has passed and everything is as it should be. This is shown with Nick’s insight, “…His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him… (Pg.189)”
Another symbolization of the color green, which contradicts the first, is the meaning “go.” As in a traffic light signal, most people associate green with the word and action “go.” This can be interpreted as meaning Gatsby should go for his dream without hesitation. It implies that Gatsby and Daisy are meant to be together and nothing should stop Gatsby from his destined happiness and love with Daisy. It inspires hope for Gatsby that he is on the right path, heading towards the best years of his life. He believes that things will soon be as they once were, only better. ”I’m going to fix everything just the way they were before,” he said nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”(Pg. 117.)”
The last symbolization the color green has in this novel is an urge to strive ahead in life, to do better in life and succeed. Gatsby changes his entire persona for a better, more sociable, image and status. He is constantly striving to be a more successful figure in society. Ever since he was a boy he put himself on a schedule with hopes for becoming a highly respected, well-known person. “He knew he had a big future in front of him. (Pg. 181),” his dad says about him. “Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this…(Pg. 182).”
White is the other color symbolism interlaced into this novel. Where green only influenced one character, white has a wider range of influence on the characters. This color symbolizes one thing, a façade, but it appears in every character. For example, Daisy is always seen wearing white, which gives her and innocent naive appearance. It is as though she uses that as an excuse for when she does something ridiculous or childish, making it seem like she does not know any better. In reality, she knows exactly what she does but just doesn’t care. She uses this little princess image and her money to hide her biased, snobbish, and conceited view of herself and her lifestyle. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy–they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together…(Pg. 187-188).”
Another character that hides behind the white symbolic façade is Jordan Baker. She also wears white quite often. She acts as though she is superior to everyone around her. Her posture, her attitude, and even the things she says imply this arrogance. “She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me she me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it-indeed I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in. (Pg.13).” She portrays a bored and apathetic attitude about everything, which is part of her “I am too good for you” appearance. In reality, she just wants to be as respected and socially accepted as Gatsby. She is not willing to take responsibility for her actions and uses her image as a guard implying that she could not have possibly done anything immoral, much like Daisy.
However, “She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep the cool insolent smile turned towards the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard jaunty body. (Pg. 63).”
Color symbolism is not very noticeable, yet it can tell a great deal about a story. In this case, the colors give the reader a look at the character’s choices and the paths he or she could have chosen compared to the ones the character chose, which adds dimension to the story. The green the different choices Gatsby can make, whether it serves as a warning, an inspiration, or an urge to get ahead. The white symbolizes a mask, or a façade. It allows the characters to portray themselves as a whole other person and hide who they really are. This puts a piece of reality into the story, as everyone wears a white mask of some kind to hide his or her true self from the world. It is the unsubtle clues given to the reader that are fascinating and allow a person to relate to the characters.
The Use of other Colors in “The Great Gatsby”
(F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a lot of colors in "The Great Gatsby" to underline his ideas.)
Golden stands for:
1) richness
2) happy or prosperous: golden days, golden age
3) successful: the golden girl of tennis
4) extremely valuable: a golden opportunity
At Gatsby's parties even the turkeys turn to gold. "..turkeys bewitched to a dark gold" (p. 41).
Jordan Baker - the golden girl of golf - is associated with that color. "With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine" (p. 44); "I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder" (p. 77).
With a few sentences Fitzgerald throws a light at the turbulent months while Daisy is waiting for Gatsby during the war. "All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the »Beale Street Blues« while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the grey tea hour ..." (p. 144). Here even the dust in the rooms, usually grey, is shining, while the usually golden tea is served at the grey tea hour. We find that contrast between golden and grey once more in "we went about opening the rest of the windows downstairs, filling the house with grey-turning, gold-turning light" (p. 144).
Sometimes the gold at Gatsby's house turns to yellow. Thus the richness is only a cover, a short sensation, like the yellow press for the more offensively sensational press. "now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music" (p. 42). In contrast to the golden girl Jordan, her admirers are only yellow. "two girls in twin yellow dresses"; "You don't know who we are, said one of the girls in yellow, but we met you here about a month ago." "... we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow" (all p. 44). Remarkably Daisy's daughter has old and yellow hair: "Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair?" (p. 111).
Silver represents jewelry and richness.
In “The Great Gatsby” the moon or moonlight or the stars are often silver: "the silver pepper of the stars" (p. 25); "The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales" (p. 48); "A silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky" (p. 114).
Grey is often used for neutral, dull, not important. "grey little villages in France" (p. 48); "The grey windows disappeared" (at Gatsby's house, p. 91); "... a grey, florid man with a hard, empty face" (p. 97) about the portrait of Dan Cody in Gatsby's bedroom. Gatsby's ideal is grey and empty. The Wilsons, living in the valley of ashes, appear in grey, except for Myrtle, when she enjoys the company of Tom Buchanan. Wilson "mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity – except his wife, who moved close to Tom" (p. 28). The only way for Myrtle to get out of the grey seems to be Tom Buchanan.
Blue is the color of being depressed, moody, or unhappy.
Therefore a lot of things aroung Gatsby are blue. "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went" (p. 41). Although a lot of people are in and around his house, his gardens (plural!) are blue. "... ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves" (p. 144), of course in Gatsby's gardens. "So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves" (p. 167). After Myrtle's death George Wilson and Mr.Michaelis are in a blue mood. " ... a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn't far off. About five o'clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light" (p. 151). The most unhappy place is the graveyard: "He had come a long way to this blue lawn" (Carraway at Gatsby's grave, p. 171). Arguably, "this lawn" means the lawn at Gatsby's house. It is mentioned at the beginning of that paragraph (p. 170). Anyway, the lawn at Gatsby's house is an unhappy place as well.
Pink
Sometimes Gatsby comes up with the color pink. "the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon" (Gatsby, p.136). When Gatsby and Daisy are finally together, "there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea" (p. 91).
Red associated with live, joy, love, shame, and rage.
The inside of Buchanan's home is in red. "We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colord space" (p. 13); "Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light"
Symbols in “The Great Gatsby”
One of the first symbols mentioned in the book is the Valley of Ashes, “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air”.
Dust, dust, dust…
Everywhere you look
- you see dust.
The Valley of Ashes resembles something dark and lifeless. As a result of fire ashes stand for destruction and death. The Valley of Ashes is a picture of absolute misery and poverty. It lacks a glamorous surface and lays bare and grey halfway between West Egg and New York. The Valley of Ashes symbolises the moral decay hidden by the attractive facades of the Eggs, and hints that beneath the decoration of West Egg and the artificial charm of East Egg lays the same repulsiveness as in the valley. The Valley was created by industrial dumping and is therefore a side-effect of Capitalism. It is a home to the only poor characters we meet in the novel. Furthermore the death of Myrtle Wilson in the Valley of Ashes stands for the pain associated with this valley. Also the fact that the Wilsons live in the valley shows that they are not of such high social standards as the other characters in the novel. By having to pass through the Valley of Ashes in order to get to New York, the other characters have to betake themselves to this lower status.“But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic- their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose…But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”
I’d like to offer moral
Support, but I have
Questionable morals…
The vague meaning of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s grotesque, unblinking eyes staring down from their advertisement makes them disturbing to the reader: in this chapter, Fitzgerald maintains their mystery, giving them no fixed symbolic value. Mysteriously, the eyes simply ‘brood on over the solemn dumping ground.’ The most believable understanding of the eyes at this point in the novel is that they stand for the eyes of God, staring down at the moral decay of the 1920s. The faded paint could symbolise the degree to which humanity has lost its connection to God. This analysis is merely suggested by the arrangement of the novel’s symbols; Nick does not directly explain the symbol in this way, leaving the reader to interpret it.When you group these two passages together it becomes very apparent that he is talking about the eyes of God looking over the world, Nick describes it as a dumping ground. Not only can this passage be seen as symbolizing the eyes of God but also as Nick’s. He is the only one in the novel who really knows what is going on. All other characters are influenced by every day life and are not able to judge situations from their own perspective. They are all as blind as these eyes which are just painted on a billboard. Because of Wilson's strong belief in God this poster is not just an advertisement. It has a deep meaning to him. His view “God sees everything” shows how strongly he believes in God watching over him through the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. His neighbor Michaelis makes fun of Wilson's faith and says about the billboard "that's an advertisement".
The green light is probably one of the most important symbols in “The Great Gatsby”. Green is the color of hope and it first appears when Gatsby stares across the bay towards a green light at the end of a dock. Later the reader finds out that this light stands on Daisy Buchanan’s dock. In the context of the novel this green light represents Gatsby’s hope to meet Daisy again and a chance to win her back. “Gatsby believed in the green light”.
He fell in love
It was his life.
Geography (East vs West )
Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nick’s analysis in Chapter 9 of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.
Symbolism of people
There is a character that we hardly ever see, and we do not even know his true name, however he is truly imperative to the book. He is called Owl-eyes. He is someone who appears to be all knowing and/or all seeing. And he is there for Gatsby when nearly no one else would be. He is like God in this book, or the twisted twenties version of him.
Also, There is a correlation between three people. These three people are Gatsby, Myrtle, and Wilson. They were the only people to ever have truly loved, and they were the only three people who died in that whole time of deception.
The most important thing
- is to have a heart.
Weather
The heat becomes oppressive during the climactic scene in the novel. Tom, Daisy, Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby head to the city as tension increases. Nick describes the day as "broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest of the summer" (102). Daisy complains, "It's so hot, and everything's so confused" (106). linking the oppressive heat with the oppressive situation. It's possible, as well, that the heat is, in some way, symbolic of hell and damnation. It is in chapter 7 that Gatsby's dream is crushed and Myrtle Wilson's infidelity is discovered.
Automobiles
Cars have been regarded as status symbols since Henry Ford rolled out the first Model T in the early 20th century. The automobiles driven by Gatsby and Tom Buchanan symbolize their attributes as well: Gatsby's car is gaudy and contains all the latest gadgets. Tom refers to it as a "circus wagon" (108). Tom's drives a coupe, a high-end, traditional, elegant auto. In addition to the two men, automobiles symbolize recklessness as evidenced by Gatsby's recklessness with money and the moral recklessness of Daisy as she barrels into Myrtle Wilson, killing her.Some links:
http://roaringtwenties.tumblr.com/
http://www.coolreferat.com/Symbolism_And_The_Great_G
