The Great Gatsby Red Color Analysis
Emma Le Bihan Essay 12/14/15
M.Gaffney
2ndeB By seeing colors in everyday’s life, no one tries to give a meaning to them or they often don’t pay attention to those. However in novels or movies, colors are a symbol for a bigger idea. For example, red is the color of passion and love, for instance in cartoons when a character is in love red hearts appear in his eyes. Green is often represented around the villains, most of them have a green attribute. The villain in the Sleeping Beauty as an evil stick with a bowl on it that turns green when she curses Aurora and her dragon spits a green fire to kill the prince. In Spiderman the Green Goblin fights …show more content…
Spiderman. In The Great Gatsby colors are symbolic such as blue, green, red, grey, yellow, pink and white. They reveal the true personality of the characters. Blue stands for illusions and white for purity, but it’s often related to yellow (old money=corruption). Blue and white are related. In The Great Gatsby, the color blue stands for illusions. It’s the color that surrounds Gatsby the most: his gardens are blue, what is separating him from Daisy is his “blue lawn”, his chauffeur wears blue and Dan Cody buys him a blue coat. Gatsby’s mansion is an entire illusion and people who come there are also full of illusions. When Gatsby throws a party in his “blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne.” People come to Gatsby’s house to forget their morose life, and by drinking alcohol, they making an illusion that their life is great. The Blue Jay could be associated to Gatsby because his first name is Jay and blue is “his” color. He could be considered as the blue man because he thinks that his dreams are almost achieved but since he doesn’t have the “golden girl” (Daisy) it all crumbles. Gatsby is not the only character with blue around him. Doctor T.J. Eckleburg's blue billboard looking down on the valley of ashes show how blue is an illusion. For instance, it makes God a non-existent dream, his eyes “blue and gigantic… but his eyes dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping around”. Doctor T.J. Eckleburg is supposed to be a figure of encouragement for the workers of the valley of ashes by giving them hope, and by saying that one day they would be able to buy his products of quality. For him pursuing the American dream is the key but since God in a non-existent dream, it makes the American dream an unachievable illusion. Also, Tom’s blue car may represent his relation with Daisy (how fake it is) because it’s just all based on money and not love. Gatsby being associated to the “blue man” and Daisy to the “golden girl” reveals their true personality.
In the novel white stands for purity but it is often related to yellow that represents old money.
This proves the corruption of the character associated to white. The character of Daisy is surrounded by white and lightness. The reader thinks that she is an innocent, true and gentle character. In the throwbacks throughout the book F. Scott Fitzgerald stresses this purity by describing how “she was dressed in white, and had a little white roadster” when she met Gatsby for the first time. She continues to wear white when she grows up, but it doesn’t have the same meaning. Her “red and white Georgian colonial mansion [...] The windows were ajar and gleaming white”. This shows how white is now filled up with yellow like an egg. Daisy’s “white face” hides her real personality of a person who now materials are more important than love. She falls in this world of corruption when she marries Tom who buys her with a pearl necklace of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She stays with him for money even though she could get back with Gatsby that is now wealthy enough for her and Tom stays with her for her beauty however he has several mistresses. It’s ironic when Daisy cries on his shirts because she realises that she probably made the biggest mistake of her life and she could have gotten love and money. Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship is not about love anymore, because he’s attracted to her to make his dream complete and she has “her mouth full of money” so she attracts him to her just because money is more important to her now. Daisy is like a mermaid because she attracts a sailor (Gatsby) by singing to him (money) to actually kill him. Daisy led Gatsby to death because when they kissed on that “one autumn night” she attracted him forever and he was blinded by her so he did the impossible for her to get her. When she kills Myrtle he covers it up for her or he’s willing to take the blame for it to protect
her.
The blue and white in this novel show how everything his fake and the only pursue is trying to have more and more money to be happy. It also demonstrates how money doesn’t buy happiness at all. It probably does the opposite, because it’s a pretext to show that because you have a lot of goods you are necessarily contented. The song Ain’t we got fun shows how characters in the novel are the opposite of simple and humble because they keep on trying to be someone else and they fake it all the time to “fit in”. Today people keep on doing that by getting plastic surgery or offering things that are worth a lot of money but simple things are maybe the most thoughtful and make you the most smile.
M.Gaffney
2ndeB By seeing colors in everyday’s life, no one tries to give a meaning to them or they often don’t pay attention to those. However in novels or movies, colors are a symbol for a bigger idea. For example, red is the color of passion and love, for instance in cartoons when a character is in love red hearts appear in his eyes. Green is often represented around the villains, most of them have a green attribute. The villain in the Sleeping Beauty as an evil stick with a bowl on it that turns green when she curses Aurora and her dragon spits a green fire to kill the prince. In Spiderman the Green Goblin fights …show more content…
Spiderman. In The Great Gatsby colors are symbolic such as blue, green, red, grey, yellow, pink and white. They reveal the true personality of the characters. Blue stands for illusions and white for purity, but it’s often related to yellow (old money=corruption). Blue and white are related. In The Great Gatsby, the color blue stands for illusions. It’s the color that surrounds Gatsby the most: his gardens are blue, what is separating him from Daisy is his “blue lawn”, his chauffeur wears blue and Dan Cody buys him a blue coat. Gatsby’s mansion is an entire illusion and people who come there are also full of illusions. When Gatsby throws a party in his “blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne.” People come to Gatsby’s house to forget their morose life, and by drinking alcohol, they making an illusion that their life is great. The Blue Jay could be associated to Gatsby because his first name is Jay and blue is “his” color. He could be considered as the blue man because he thinks that his dreams are almost achieved but since he doesn’t have the “golden girl” (Daisy) it all crumbles. Gatsby is not the only character with blue around him. Doctor T.J. Eckleburg's blue billboard looking down on the valley of ashes show how blue is an illusion. For instance, it makes God a non-existent dream, his eyes “blue and gigantic… but his eyes dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping around”. Doctor T.J. Eckleburg is supposed to be a figure of encouragement for the workers of the valley of ashes by giving them hope, and by saying that one day they would be able to buy his products of quality. For him pursuing the American dream is the key but since God in a non-existent dream, it makes the American dream an unachievable illusion. Also, Tom’s blue car may represent his relation with Daisy (how fake it is) because it’s just all based on money and not love. Gatsby being associated to the “blue man” and Daisy to the “golden girl” reveals their true personality.
In the novel white stands for purity but it is often related to yellow that represents old money.
This proves the corruption of the character associated to white. The character of Daisy is surrounded by white and lightness. The reader thinks that she is an innocent, true and gentle character. In the throwbacks throughout the book F. Scott Fitzgerald stresses this purity by describing how “she was dressed in white, and had a little white roadster” when she met Gatsby for the first time. She continues to wear white when she grows up, but it doesn’t have the same meaning. Her “red and white Georgian colonial mansion [...] The windows were ajar and gleaming white”. This shows how white is now filled up with yellow like an egg. Daisy’s “white face” hides her real personality of a person who now materials are more important than love. She falls in this world of corruption when she marries Tom who buys her with a pearl necklace of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She stays with him for money even though she could get back with Gatsby that is now wealthy enough for her and Tom stays with her for her beauty however he has several mistresses. It’s ironic when Daisy cries on his shirts because she realises that she probably made the biggest mistake of her life and she could have gotten love and money. Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship is not about love anymore, because he’s attracted to her to make his dream complete and she has “her mouth full of money” so she attracts him to her just because money is more important to her now. Daisy is like a mermaid because she attracts a sailor (Gatsby) by singing to him (money) to actually kill him. Daisy led Gatsby to death because when they kissed on that “one autumn night” she attracted him forever and he was blinded by her so he did the impossible for her to get her. When she kills Myrtle he covers it up for her or he’s willing to take the blame for it to protect
her.
The blue and white in this novel show how everything his fake and the only pursue is trying to have more and more money to be happy. It also demonstrates how money doesn’t buy happiness at all. It probably does the opposite, because it’s a pretext to show that because you have a lot of goods you are necessarily contented. The song Ain’t we got fun shows how characters in the novel are the opposite of simple and humble because they keep on trying to be someone else and they fake it all the time to “fit in”. Today people keep on doing that by getting plastic surgery or offering things that are worth a lot of money but simple things are maybe the most thoughtful and make you the most smile.