Color Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (Fitzgerald 189). People live their lives and try to achieve more, but their past will forever be with them. F. Scott Fitzgerald used colors to show people’s dreams and their past in The Great Gatsby. He used many different colors to show imagery throughout the book. He wanted to add emotion and depth to the descriptions. Fitzgerald associated the colors with characters, situations, places, and objects. He also took modern day culture and dreams and conveyed them using the use of colors. One of the colors Fitzgerald used to show the main theme of the book was green. The color green symbolizes hope. Fitzgerald associated the color green with Jay Gatsby and his hope for Daisy Buchanan and himself to be together again, as they were in the past. The narrator, Nick Carraway, said, “Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end …show more content…
He associated the color white with Daisy Buchanan and her lack of innocence. Daisy was very childish and only did things for herself. She was careless and left messes to be cleaned up and resolved by other people. Daisy says, “Our white girlhood was passed there. Our beautiful white—” (Fitzgerald 24). Daisy says that in her younger years she was innocent, but everyone is innocent during their childhood. She implies that she used to be innocent, but now she is not. She lacks innocence and she knows she does. Nick says, “They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house” (Fitzgerald 12). Daisy dressed herself in white to make people think she was innocent. Nick recognizes that Daisy and Daisy’s friend, Jordan Baker, are both wearing white dresses. The dresses were very impeccable and pure, but the irony is that Daisy was