color symbolism in the great gatsby
Color Symbolism Influencing Characterization in The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald was written in 1925. It was written during the “Roaring 20’s”, a period of growth in the economy, country wide wealth, and frivolous spending. The novel depicts the time period, the characters having grand parties and having a detached mindset about their actions. The characters show negative parts of the time as well, many being corrupted like the stock market or overly fascinated with materialistic things like many people of the time. Nick Carraway, the narrator, is one of the few characters who does not exhibit the major flaws that the other characters do. He is able to see what is wrong in society, at the same time as what is positive about people, and his viewpoints are what characterize those in the novel. Nick moves to West Egg in the summer of ’22 and begins his life as a bond man after the Great War. It is who he meets in that summer that the novel is about, using rich colors to describe his surroundings and having long opinions of people. Colors within the novel help to characterize the people around Nick, describing the nature and characteristics of people by associating them with certain colors.
BLUE
Nick tends to have a positive opinion of Jay Gatsby, often putting him on somewhat of a pedestal in comparison to many others he met in the summer. Gatsby is a war hero that Nick knew in the war and who later is his neighbor on West Egg. Gatsby is often associated with the color blue, blue only coming up a few times when not associated with Gatsby, the only other reference to blue is of T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes. Blue is used to characterize people as watchers, or omnipresent people. After Wilson, a mechanic and husband, loses his wife Myrtle in a car accident, Wilson looks out the window at “the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. ‘God sees everything’”(107). Wilson describes
The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald was written in 1925. It was written during the “Roaring 20’s”, a period of growth in the economy, country wide wealth, and frivolous spending. The novel depicts the time period, the characters having grand parties and having a detached mindset about their actions. The characters show negative parts of the time as well, many being corrupted like the stock market or overly fascinated with materialistic things like many people of the time. Nick Carraway, the narrator, is one of the few characters who does not exhibit the major flaws that the other characters do. He is able to see what is wrong in society, at the same time as what is positive about people, and his viewpoints are what characterize those in the novel. Nick moves to West Egg in the summer of ’22 and begins his life as a bond man after the Great War. It is who he meets in that summer that the novel is about, using rich colors to describe his surroundings and having long opinions of people. Colors within the novel help to characterize the people around Nick, describing the nature and characteristics of people by associating them with certain colors.
BLUE
Nick tends to have a positive opinion of Jay Gatsby, often putting him on somewhat of a pedestal in comparison to many others he met in the summer. Gatsby is a war hero that Nick knew in the war and who later is his neighbor on West Egg. Gatsby is often associated with the color blue, blue only coming up a few times when not associated with Gatsby, the only other reference to blue is of T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes. Blue is used to characterize people as watchers, or omnipresent people. After Wilson, a mechanic and husband, loses his wife Myrtle in a car accident, Wilson looks out the window at “the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. ‘God sees everything’”(107). Wilson describes