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The use of colors as symbols in The Great Gatsby
Color Symbolism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Symbolism in the great gatsby
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F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes an assortment of colors in The Great Gatsby to display different stylistic elements, universally complementing the setting, characters, and theme for readers. Overall, Fitzgerald’s manipulation of symbolizing, narrating, and wording displays his immeasurable talent of lyricism and explains his continuous impact on audiences of all eras. Fitzgerald successfully arranges each color to contradict the other: gold controverting gray, white opposing yellow, and green contrasting blue. In creating the setting, he fashions gold to represent the dream of the age’s state and gray to publicize the cruel reality of the conditions in the Roaring Twenties. In sketching the characters, Fitzgerald models white as the outwardly
In Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, many colors are used to represent various meanings. One color in particular that signifies a deeper meaning in the novel is the color, white. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the color white is used to symbolize both fake innocence and fake purity as well as to develop the character perception.
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.
Symbolism plays an important role in any novel of literary merit. From objects, to traits, to the way something is portrayed, it can have a whole different meaning. Like death and taxes, there is no escaping color. It is ubiquitous. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays a superior use of symbols such as color, light, and heat. Fitzgerald’s superior use of color as a symbol is the focus of this essay.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Colors in The Great Gatsby." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 10 May 2014. .
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
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.