Colors in the Great Gatsby

Colors in Symbolism

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. Although these are not the only colors that Fitzgerald uses for symbolism, they are the ones that he expresses the most. This book is a very colorful book in the sense that it uses colors to cover so many different aspects of peoples lives.

Fitzgerald uses the color yellow to symbolize moral decay. On (Page 18) he writes " The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair." He is talking about Tom and Jordan Baker, and he is suggesting that tom might be heading for moral decay. In the book there are several things that Tom does that might prove this. First of all Tom is having an affair with Myrtle Wilson. A second thing is that he does not like Gatsby, and several times he tries to prove that he is not who he says he is. Tom even hires a detective to prove this. Gatsby had a Rolls Royce that was yellow "His station wagon scampered like a yellow brisk-bug . . ." (Page 39). Gatsby's car was referred to many times in the book, but it was always referred to as "The yellow car" (Page 157).

The color yellow was used most frequently when there was a death. One of the first things that Fitzgerald wrote about when Myrtle died was when they laid her on a table in the garage. He wrote "The garage, which was lit only by a yellow light in a swinging wire basket overhead" page . Wilson her husband was in a dazed state, and kept referring to his car only as the "Yellow car" (Page157) "That big yellow car" (Page141). That car led to Gatsby's demise. Just before Gatsby was shot by Wilson, Gatsby decided he was going to take a swim in his pool. He had not used it all summer. The chauffeur helped Gatsby fill up a mattress he was going to use in the pool. "Gatsby shouldered the mattress and started for the pool. Once he