Use Of Color Symbolism In The Great Gatsby

Pablo Picasso, a famous artist throughout the 20th century, once proclaimed, “Colors, like features, follow the changes of emotion.” Pablo Picasso, a painter who used colors in his works to convey emotions, explains to us that colors can often be used to reflect different emotions. Artists, authors, painters, graphic designers, and many more people like Picasso have used the technique of color symbolism to portray different points, emotions, or symbols that they wish to express to their viewers. One author in particular that used color symbolism was F. Scott Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby. Throughout the novel, the main character, Nick Carraway, gets involved with a disastrous relationship among his friends, some of whom are “New …show more content…
Fitzgerald portrays the false innocence many characters use as a mask to cover up for the destructive person hidden beneath. One of the only characters that readers experience that aren’t characterized by a poisoned innocence seems to be Nick. To prove Nick’s true white personality, Nick burned all the bridges with Jordan as explained by the quote, “I don’t know which one of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didn’t care” (Fitzgerald 155). Jordan, at this point in the book, was the only thing left tying Nick to the corruptness that existed around Daisy and Gatsby’s lives. This quote validates the fact that the symbolism of innocence through the color white was able to overpower the darker forces opposing Nick. As Schneider states, “-but which Nick, who discovers the corrupt admixture of dream and reality, rejects in [abandon]ing in Jordan” (3). Schneider is referring to the innocence that remains with Nick throughout the hardships. Schneider uncovers how white can never really stay fully within one character other than Nick. We see Fitzgerald expressing the white symbolism for the first time in Gatsby when he first met Daisy after many years and uses the quote, “An hour later the front …show more content…
As stated by Olesen, “Until the end, Gatsby is hopeful that he can win Daisy with this power of money.” Basically Olesen is insisting that Gatsby had this long-lasting hope that always existed in him to get Daisy back. In his book, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald maintains that “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (180). The green light depicts Gatsby’s hope. The green light symbolizes this sort of unreachable future that Gatsby thinks he can have with Daisy because Daisy is only right across the bay. The only thing blocking Gatsby from fulfilling his hope toward a future with Daisy is Tom, which creates this sense of green envy