Color symbolism in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the spring of 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald published his best novel The Great Gatsby. Since then it is the most famous American book about the 1920’s. Fitzgerald used many literary devices to embrace his believes about the people of this time period. I will focus on color symbolism, the most popular technique in this book.

White color is the most significant to the story. It symbolizes purity, innocence, and royalty, but Fitzgerald used this color to underline the inside of the wealthy people. This innocence is just a surface; they cover their dark side behind it, like Daisy. Her name symbolizes a flower: its penals are white, but its inside is yellow, not as pure as white. Daisy is fragile like a flower, but deep inside her, she is almost evil. She even kills an innocent person, who is her husband’s, Tom’s, mistress. The major theme in The Great Gatsby is immorality of the people in 1920’s, especially the upper class. Daisy, Tom, and Jordan are “old money” people. They wear white clothes, live in white houses, but they are immoral inside, they have no scruples.

Another color that is significant is yellow. It symbolizes a desire for wealth, and old money. Like I already mentioned, rich people are “rotten” inside, like daisies. But “noveau riche” people are also yellow inside, like Gatsby. He gained his fortune through dealings with crime. And this exemplifies a theme of death of the “American Dream”. The immoral people have all the money, and, according to the “American Dream”, money should be a reward for honesty and hard work.

Green color is also significant. It symbolizes new money, and hope. In The Great Gatsby green is associated with Gatsby. He is a “new money” person, so he lives in a green house, surrounded by green lawn. He has a hope of repeating the past, what is another theme in the novel. Every night he reaches toward the green light on Daisy’s dock. In the end of Chapter IX, Nick, the narrator of the story, compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.

It is obvious, from my analysis, that color symbolism helped to convey themes of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. By use of characterization it was possible to see the relationship between the colors and themes, what affected the meaning of the story. Without it The Great Gatsby would be a simple love story.