Color Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

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.

One of the most well-known colors used for symbolism in The Great Gatsby is the color gold. Gold represents

People all around the world, in literature and even in everyday life see white as these meanings. In The Great Gatsby, it represents innocence, a new beginning, and purity. When Nick Carraway first enters Daisy and Tom’s house, he’s seeing them for the first time. All of their affairs are yet to come and Nick still sees them as regular, innocent people. Everything is described as white. He noticed that, “The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside” (Fitzgerald 8). To Nick, everyone is innocent. The white composition of everything symbolizes their façade of innocence. He is unaware of all of their scandals. Everything is new and pure. Even Gatsby was portrayed in white. “In literature, the color white typically symbolizes innocence and purity” (Brozak). He’s starting over so everything is still white, fresh, and pure. White shows more than just innocence and a new start, “White is also vital to the novel as it has been used for portraying beauty, cleanliness, wealth, innocence, and virginity” (Olson). Because Fitzgerald uses white to describe Daisy and Jordan, it can be inferred that they possess these qualities. They are new people in Nick’s life who hide their private life from the public very well. Fitzgerald wrote that, “sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once… that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses” (Fitzgerald 12). Again, by referring to their

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is often described as blue as well as hi surroundings. This color symbolism suggests deeper feelings of Gatsby. He comes off as a happy, well rounded man, but maybe deep down he’s actually sad. Gatsby’s garden, which is usually a spot for mingling and partying, is described as blue. Fitzgerald wrote that, “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (Fitzgerald 39). Using blue as the color description for the garden, it shows that Gatsby may be happy on the surface, but really he is sad. All he wants is to have Daisy and be old money. His parties try to distract him from his longing for that life, but are succeeding. Even everyday things around Gatsby were being described as blue, like the, “…Ghostly birds began to sing among blue leaves” (Fitzgerald 152). Gatsby was starting to see everything as blue and depressing. He couldn’t find joy in things like he used to now that he had a taste of what life with Daisy was like. By describing the leaves as blue, it shows that even little things in Gatsby’s life no longer have color. Even Gatsby’s death was blue. Nick said that, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn…grave” (Fitzgerald 180). His grave, being blue, shows that he died a sad man. The blue grave description makes the reader think about why Gatsby may have died sad. He had a lot of money and seemingly a great life, but deep down, he was