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Literary analysis of the great gatsby
Literary analysis for the great gatsby
Literary analysis of the great gatsby
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True Colors of Tom and Gatsby Gatsby and Tom, the apparent good and evil, were both Champions of everyday aspects and consequences of the American dream. Fitzgerald uses the color red to help define Tom’s character and the colors green and gold to define Gatsby’s character. The color red defines Tom’s character and what type of man he really is. When Tom forced Nick to come with him to see Myrtle, Nick witnesses Tom slapping Myrtle on the nose, for which Nick describes Tom’s bloody hand and Myrtles bloodied nose. This shows in true graphic senses that Tom is a representation of great violence. Tom is also shown through red to be very passionate to the point that he believes what he wants is his and what is his is only his. Fitting in with Tom’s character, one of Tom’s rooms in his house is completely crimson red, hinting at who he is on the inside. This shows that Tom has likely been this way for a long time, backstabbing others is his way. Shows what Tom is like on the inside where know one can see, and that anyone who gets in Toms way is subject to pain. In the end Tom has proven to be a violent and dangerously passionate man. …show more content…
In chapter nine Nick reveals Gatsby’s dream. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.” This shows that Gatsby was always wanting to grow and expand himself as a person. Gatsby was in essence a dreamer, risk taker, and an initiator. When Nick first goes to Gatsby’s party he hints and talks of Gatsby’s gold and apparently luxurious lifestyle. Gold is the color of wealth and prosperity which is what Gatsby has and always will dream of achieving. The color gold, to a certain degree, is what Daisy means to Gatsby’s drive to be the best he can be, “the golden egg” or the ultimate prize. Gatsby from the very beginning was a sort of manifestation of a dream, the American
Gatsby’s explanation of this dream focused on money and social status. He has always yearned for this, even when he was a child. Fitzgerald frequently emphasises Gatsby’s desire, throughout the entirety of this novel. Though, Fitzgerald accentuates this desire when Nick discovers the truth of Gatsby’s past. During this elucidation, Nick explains that “his [Gatsby’s] parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people-his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.” (Fitzgerald, 98) This shows the reader Gatsby’s lifelong determination for wealth and power. Even in his adult life, he strives for more than what he has. In John Steinbeck’s essay, he explains that “we [Americans] go mad with dissatisfaction in the face of success” (Steinbeck, 1) This is exactly how Gatsby feels, he is not content with his success, the amount of money he has, or the height of his social status and is constantly wishing for more than he has. Though, once he meets Daisy he no longer strives for wealth, but rather for her. As shown in this novel, even though Gatsby has achieved all he had wanted when he was growing up, he will not be content until he is able to call Daisy his
When the book begins, it is assumed that his dream is fortune and “fame,” but as the book continues, it reveals his dream is love. He has a love, Daisy for many years, she is the reason he lives where he does and has the parties he has, just to impress Daisy. Daisy never even showed up to one of his parties until the end. Gatsby bought a big house right across the river from Daisy’s house and and throws extravagant parties to get her to come, all he wants was love. Although he never truly achieves it, he is able to work hard to try to achieve it. That is a part of the american dream, it may not be attainable and Gatsby might be working hard for something that just is impossible for him to achieve . “―I thought of Gatsby‘s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy‘s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could barely fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night” (p. 180,
In the beginning, Gatsby was a poor army boy who fell in love with a rich girl named Daisy. Knowing from their different circumstances, he could not marry her. So Gatsby left to accumulate a lot of money. Daisy, not being able to wait for Gatsby, marries a rich man named Tom. Tom believes that it is okay for a man to be unfaithful but it is not okay for the woman to be. This caused a lot of conflict in their marriage and caused Daisy to be very unhappy. Gatsby’s dream is to be with Daisy, and since he has accumulated a lot of money, he had his mind set on getting her back. Throughout the novel, Gatsby shows his need to attain The American Dream of love and shows his determination to achieve it. You can tell that Gatsby has a clear vision of what he wants when Nick says, “..he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I gla...
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
The use of a green light at the end of a landing stage to signal a romantic
These ideals are evident in Nick’s narration and in the words spoken by the other characters, including Gatsby himself. For five years, Gatsby was denied the one thing that he desired more than anything in the world: Daisy. While she was willing to wait for him until after the war, he did not want to return to her a poor man who would, in his eyes, be unworthy of her love. Gatsby did not want to force Daisy to choose between the comfortable lifestyle she was used to and his love. Before he would return to her, he was determined to make something of himself so that Daisy would not lose the affluence that she was accustomed to possessing.
The color red is most significantly shown when Nick tells us that he "bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew." Fitzgerald uses the color red alongside with colors such as yellow and white to illustrate a close resemblance between the colors to represent the ugliness of reality.
Gatsby is a dreamer, he dreams that one day he and Daisy will be able to be together once again. To achieve this dream Gatsby has made himself a rich man. He knows that in order to win Daisy back he must be wealthy and of high social stature. Gatsby becomes rich, has a beautiful mansion, nice things, things like shirts “They’re such beautiful shirts. . . it makes me sad because I’ve never seen such-such beautiful clothes” (pg.98).Gatsby believes his dream will come true because of all the money and nice things he has. The way that Gatsby becomes rich is in a way the demise of his dream. Gatsby becomes wealthy by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. Daisy eventually learns about this and it is one of the reasons she will never again be with Gatsby. The other reason is Daisy a...
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.
This color red is associated with sin, which can be readily seen all throughout the story. For example, when Nick is leaving Tom’s house he saw, “in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light.” In this scene red represents the blood from Myrtle’s death and the pool foreshadows the murder of Gatsby. In addition, the color red represented blood and sin and this could be seen in the scene where Tom hits Myrtle because she was having a fuss about why she should be able to talk about Daisy whenever she wanted. After Tom got tired of her being defiant he struck her and broke her nose and the scene afterwards was described as, “Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain.” This scene is very important because it shows that Myrtle is considered tainted and impure because Tom is willing to hit her if he must. But, in the case of Daisy, he might hit her but would never break her nose because she is a pure, unbred trophy wife. Moreover, the color red is represented through the sinful actions that occur throughout the novel and is the representation of the crime stained
Reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby is similar to looking through a kaleidoscope, both are filled with important meaningful colors. F. Scott Fitzgerald is equally as much an author as he is an artist, with his skillful elegance of painting a story within the bindings of the book. Even though grey is considered a dull unimportant color in society, it is a pivotal and crucial addition to The Great Gatsby. In this story, the color grey, which is associated with poverty and lifelessness, ties everything together.
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.