Symbolism of Color in The Great Gatsby

Symbolism of Color in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby was written buy F.Scott Fitzgerld in 1925, F.Scott Fitzgerzld is one of the greatest writers of 20th century in American literature. The Great Gatsby is regarded as the core of Fitzgerzld‘s artistic achievement ,in the novel, he portrayed characters and stressed the theme from images and symbols ,it mainly tell readers Gatsby‘s pursuit and disillusion of American Dream by means of symbols of the color, character‘s name and the name of places, therefore ,as we can see from the book there are so many images which are full of symbolic meaning through the whole story ,the story not only symbolized the one age ,but also indicates the generation of American Jazz Age .I will introduce the symbolism of colors in The Great Gatsby in this article, although we all know all kinds of colors ? meaning in our daily life ,but in this novel ,in order to deepen and broaden it‘s theme, the author gives colors other meaning s,which make us exactly understand the age which he lived in .

According to the Oxford dictionary symbolism means the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to object .As one of the most important devices, symbolism is used in modern fiction and it is essentially and indirect mode of expression which suggest much more what is actually described .In this book, colors plays an important role for characterization ,they are also helpful to express the theme of the novel in a vivid way, There are several colors used for symbolism in The Great Gatsby, for example the colors of blue ,green ,white and red throughout the book ,and these colors are completely reflect the theme of this novel, I will analysis the symbolism of those color in the following paragraphs.

The first one is color green, maybe in people‘s mind .green color often give us the feeling of youth ,vigor, spring and hope, but Fitzgerld entrusts to green with burned-new symbolic meaning ,there are three times green appearances in this novel .The first appearance of ―the green light ‖in the novel is in the end of the first chapter with which the hero Gatsby appears:

----he strected out his arms lownd the dark water in the curious way and, far as I was from ,I could sworn he was trembing .Involuntaring I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light minute and far away that might have been the end of a dock…From the cultural point of view ,the color green not only represents hope, peace and dream, but also has the visional symbolic meaning alluding to Gatsby‘s hopeful and dreamy life .As we all know , Gatsby rose from a humble orgin , but he was full of hope for life and future and dreamed for the life of the upper class. The second appearance of the ―green light‖ is in chapter five. The green light here represents hope and pursuit ,and even Daisy ,when Daisy was invited to Gatsby‘s big comfortable house, he said to her ‖if wasn‘t for the mist we could see your home across the bay‖ said

Gatsby‖ You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock‖. Being attracted by his dream, Gatsby totally ignores the real life ,and gives Daisy a halo, however, in spite of Gatsby owns wealth, his hamble origin is destined that he still has an impassable gap with American upper class ,so the disappearance of the charm of the green light symbolizes dislocation of the predestined love of them. The third appearance of the ―green light‖ is in the end of novel, Nike says after Gatsby‘s death ‖Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by tear recedes before us, It coluded us then, but that‘s matter –tomorrow we will faster ,stretch out our arms father…..and one fine morning—so we beat on, boats against the current ,borne back ceaselessly into the pot ‖.This green light is conferred upon deeper meanings, connecting Gatsby and the green color again and again ,the author undoubtedly wants to prove that green color symbolizes the hope of Gatsby .There is another thing that need to be pointed, green is the color of ―dollar‖ so green also represents the wealth and American Dream Gatsby pursuit all his life.

The second one color is white ,white is a color appears much time throughout the novel ,At first ,it is used to describe Daisy .The first thing Nick mentions when he sees Daisy in East Egg is that she is wearing a white dress. This color related to Daisy ,it is her own color .Daisy‘s cloth are always white and her car is also white ,this color represents he purity ,her innocence as it seems. When Gatsby takes Nick for a ride in his car ,he is stopped by a policeman ,Gatsby shows the officer a white card ,and latter immediately excuses himself. At first, Gatsby makes Nick believe that it is Christmas card sent to him by the commissioner, but later on we learn that Gatsby had brined the police officer ,so ,in contrast, ‖white‖ also represents corruption. ‖white ‖can also be related to Tom, who is the perfect example of a racist man ,he believes that black people should disappear, he believe that white is the superior race, so, black and white are used to show how racism affected people from high classes at that time. The use of white .in reference to Daisy wardron also symbolize her laziness and uselessness in the story , she is completely devoid of and knowledge of the out side world, something we can find quite appearance was her obviously shallow ,money grabbing motives. For example ,when she is taken into Gatsby‘s home for a tour, she is shown Gatsby‘s beautiful imported shirts Daisy begins to cry ,saying that these shirts are so beautiful ‘but what she is really expressing is her envy and jealousy of Gatsby‘s new riches and all of her elaborate material possession.

Red is the third one ,red can show Tom‘s individual character ,selfish ,arrogant ,barbarous ,and cruel .The superior family‘s social standing background made Tom swollen with pride and superilions, he always push away every body blocking in the front of his barbarously .The image of the red crude and rush bull showed forth in his

writing. Though he married Daisy ,he often meet with lover secretly .After perceiving the personal relationships of wife and Gatsby, unexpectedly took her in front of Gatsby ,in order to prove that Gatsby unable to cause the inpury to himself. This showed that he was false and conceited while learning his wife colliding his lover to death without intension ,out of envy Gatsby, he instigated his lover‘s husband to kill his rival in love cruelly. In view of essence ,he was the real murderer whose hands were red with blood .Red ended the molding of Tom‘s in the novel.

There are other colors in this novel, such as pink, yellow, blue and so on ,they often help enrich the theme of this book. For example ,pink is the symbolic of the love between Gatsby and Daisy, blue represent melancholy and calmness, the author call for the belif and loyal that absence from that age. Fitzgerld is so imaginative and creative that abundant symbols used in the novel to convey his ideas and attitude, and no matter what symbols are, they are in harmony with the theme and the characters of the novel. Reference

1《了不起的盖茨比》中绚丽色彩之我见 张海菊 崔朝霞 湖北经济学院学报（人文社会科学版） （九江学院 外国语学院， 江西 九江 332005）

2谈《连不起的盖茨比》中颜色象征在表现主题中的作用 董爱华 克山师专学报（齐齐哈尔大学 克山学区，黑龙江，克山 161601）

3论《了不起的盖茨比》中色彩象征 吴贵舞 （开封大学外国语学院，河南 开封 475004）

4《了不起的盖茨比》中绿色的意义及作用 张漫 （贵州大学外国语学院 贵州 贵阳 550025）

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