Color In The Great Gatsby Essay

F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes colors in his story, The Great Gatsby, as a way of describing his characters. Colors can be used to symbolize different emotions, feelings, or entities. For example, green is associated with life and nature, and white is correlated with purity. Red is assimilated with love but also danger. There are many colors that relate to the characters in this story, but the most interesting and complex is the story’s tragic hero, Jay Gatsby. Green is the color of money, and Jay Gatsby is undoubtedly a very wealthy man, but it represents more than that in the case of Gatsby. Green can be used to represent Gatsby’s desperate hope of being with Daisy, which his is undying dream and what he puts all his effort into. Gatsby’s …show more content…
Blue is akin to sadness and depression, and both of these feelings wear on Gatsby. On page 8, Nick is describing his living situation on West Egg, and mentions that East Egg lies on the other side of the body of water his house lies on. This water is blue, and it divides Gatsby from the one he loves. The blue body of water is used by Fitzgerald as a physical and metaphorical means of separating Gatsby from Daisy. Blue is also the color of Gatsby’s garden, as established on page 43. Blue surrounds Gatsby as he is forced to deal with the sadness of loving someone who does not feel the same …show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald utilizes colors in an interesting way in The Great Gatsby. He uses colors as a means of characterization. The character with perhaps the widest variety of characteristics and colors is Jay Gatsby. This man can be characterized with green for hope, red and pink for passion and love, blue for sadness, and yellow for wealth. Gatsby is a very fascinating character. He has such passion, and is such a hopeful man. Unfortunately, he could not let go of his dream. That dream, that undying passion is ultimately what led to his demise. If he had let go of Daisy, perhaps his car would never have hit