Yellow Cocktail Music: The Use of Color in The Great Gatsby The Jazz Age of the 1920’s was a fast-paced, lovedrunk decade. It was colored with all forms of art, from music and literature to sex and war. The American Dream first emerged during this time, or rather, a new and materialistic version of it emerged. Everyone wanted to drink from a fountain of youth and eat from a feast of good fortune and wealth, and the pursuit of this lead to the ultimate downfall of American society in the year 1929. Nobody seemed to understand this better than F. Scott Fitzgerald, and no book illustrated this concept of American greed better than The Great Gatsby. To get to the core of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s thoughts on the American Dream and the way he explores it within The Great Gatsby, one must analyze the creative ways in which Fitzgerald uses traditional color symbolism to show us how the nature of humanity and the harshness of reality tampers with our dreams to ultimately turn them into something repulsive and broken. There are three colors that held the most symbolic power within the novel: white,
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Not just with colors, but with objects and even certain people as well. However, the various hues and combinations of color bring the most depth and complexity to the novel. This symbolism may even uncover things about Fitzgerald’s thoughts and opinions about American life that may otherwise have gone unexamined due to the complex and double-sided ways in which he used it. The use of the color white denotes perfection and pristineness while it also represents imperfection and corruption. The use of green represents ambition, while also illustrating the tumultuous flaws within Gatsby that fuel this ambition. Fitzgerald’s use of gold and yellow are perhaps the most important symbols in the novel, representing not only the American Dream, but also the ways in which the American Dream hurts the very foundation of American
Not just with colors, but with objects and even certain people as well. However, the various hues and combinations of color bring the most depth and complexity to the novel. This symbolism may even uncover things about Fitzgerald’s thoughts and opinions about American life that may otherwise have gone unexamined due to the complex and double-sided ways in which he used it. The use of the color white denotes perfection and pristineness while it also represents imperfection and corruption. The use of green represents ambition, while also illustrating the tumultuous flaws within Gatsby that fuel this ambition. Fitzgerald’s use of gold and yellow are perhaps the most important symbols in the novel, representing not only the American Dream, but also the ways in which the American Dream hurts the very foundation of American