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Colors as Symbolism

Colors as Symbolism. There’s a little too much color “stuff” going on to be coincidental. . The Great Gatsby is a meditation on 1920’s America as a whole and the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

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Colors as Symbolism

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  1. Colors as Symbolism There’s a little too much color “stuff” going on to be coincidental.

  2. The Great Gatsby is a meditation on 1920’s America as a whole and the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses colors in The Great Gatsby to underline his ideas.

  3. “Yellow cocktail music” plays at Gatsby’s party where turkeys are “bewitched to dark gold” and Jordan & Nick sit with “two girls in yellow.” • (Gatsby is trying to fit in with the “old money” crowd even though he is part of the “new money” crowd.) • Gatsby even wears a yellow tie when he goes to visit Daisy at Nick’s house. • Daisy is the “golden girl.” Her voice is “full of money.” YELLOW & Gold: money, money, money&DEATH

  4. Yellow is the color of the car that runs down Myrtle. • Yellow is the color of T.J. Eckleburg’s glasses. (billboard to promote business of an optometrist) T.J. Eckleburg’s yellow glasses symbolize the loss of spiritual values in America/growing commercialism of America. Dual symbolism: Money is associated with destruction & the filthy result of the decadent lifestyles led by the rich. YELLOW is also the color of DESTRUCTION

  5. The façade behind which characters hide Symbolizes • Beauty • Cleanliness • Innocence • Virginity • Laziness WHITE: Innocence & Femininity…maybe.

  6. Daisy • Daisy’s car (before marriage) was white • Daisy’s clothes, the rooms of her house…all white. BUT Daisy is hardly the picture of girlish innocence. *She is selfish, careless, and destructive. White in The Great Gatsby symbolizes FALSE purity or goodness.

  7. Analysis • Might suggest even the purest characters in the novel have been corrupted • OR there was no such purity to begin with. Remember symbolism for yellow? Gatsby wears a white suit and a gold tie when he sees Daisy for the first time in five years. Coincidence? White: False Purity

  8. Life & New Beginnings • Think of plants, springtime, renewal • green=hope/the future/freshness Green Light on Daisy’s Dock Across the Water * Early in the novel, Gatsby is seen reaching out across the water to this light. * The green light=the “unattainable dream” GREEN: Life, Vitality, The Future, Exploration

  9. The color blue is present around Gatsby more than any other character. • His blue gardens • His “blue lawn” (water) separating him from Daisy • Cody (mentor figure) bought him a blue coat (symbolic transformation to Jay Gatsby—new name) BLUE: Illusions & Romantic Dreams

  10. Grey is symbolic of dreariness, bleakness, & industrialization. Grey Ash Heaps (dumping ground on the way to New York City)=associated with lifelessness & barrenness; consequence of industrialization Wilson:Wilson’s face is “ashen.” His eyes are “pale and glazed.” He becomes the bearer of lifelessness later in the novel. GREY & Lack of Color: Lifelessness

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