The Great Gatsby

1. The Great Gatsby Color symbolism

2. “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions” --Pablo Picasso

3. Gold • Richness • happy or prosperous: golden days, golden age • successful: the golden girl • extremely valuable: a golden opportunity

4. Gold • At Gatsby's parties even the turkeys turn to gold. "..turkeys bewitched to a dark gold" (p. 41). • Jordan Baker - the golden girl of golf - is associated with that color. "With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine" (p. 44); "I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder" (p. 77).

5. Yellow • Sometimes the gold at Gatsby's house turns to yellow • "now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music" (p. 42). • In contrast to the golden girl Jordan, her admirers are only yellow. "two girls in twin yellow dresses"; "»You don't know who we are,« said one of the girls in yellow, »but we met you here about a month ago.«" "... we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow" (all p. 44). • Remarkably Daisy's daughter has old and yellow hair: "Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair?" (p. 111).

6. Silver • jewelry and richness • In The Great Gatsby the moon or moonlight or the stars are often silver: • "the silver pepper of the stars" (p. 25); • "The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales" (p. 48); • "A silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky" (p. 114).

7. White • 1) morally unblemished honorable; pure • When Nick Caraway visited the Buchanans he met two young women, of course Daisy and Jordan "They were both in white" (p. 13). • Even the windows at Daisy's house are white "The windows were ajar and gleaming white" (p. 13). • "Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white" (Daisy and Jordan, p. 24). • "they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight" (Daisy and Gatsby, p. 106). • In a El-Greco-like picture at the end of the novel "four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress" (p. 167). • "His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own" (p. 107).

8. White • Fitzgerald uses the color white for At the end of the novel ["the party was over" (p. 171), like the end of the Jazz Age at the Great Depression 1929] somebody soiled Gatsby's house. "On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it" (p. 171). • Daisy Fay. She wears white clothes and has a white car.

9. Green • Fitzgerald used it mainly for "not faded", like in "a green old age", • or for hope. • This green light is across the sea where Buchanan's house is supposed to be. Gatsby said: "»You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock«" (p. 90); • "Now it was again a green light on a dock" (p. 90); “ • ...when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock" (p. 171); • "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us" (p. 171). • Later the whole water between Gatsby and Daisy gets green "On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat,.." (p. 112). • Once (as far as I found it) Fitzgerald used "green" for envious or jealous: "In the sunlight his face was green" (George Wilson, p. 117).

10. Grey • is often used for neutral • dull • not important • "grey little villages in France" (p. 48); • "The grey windows disappeared" (at Gatsby's house, p. 91); • "... a grey, florid man with a hard, empty face" (p. 97) • The Wilsons, living in the valley of ashes, appear in grey, except for Myrtle, when she enjoys the company of Tom Buchanan. • Wilson "mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity – except his wife, who moved close to Tom" (p. 28).

11. Blue • the color of being depressed • Moody • unhappy • Although a lot of people are in and around his house, his gardens (plural!) are blue. "... ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves" (p. 144 • After Myrtle's death George Wilson and Mr.Michaelis are in a blue mood. " ... a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn't far off. About five o'clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light" (p. 151). • The most unhappy place is the graveyard: "He had come a long way to this blue lawn" (Carraway at Gatsby's grave, p. 171).

12. Pink • Sometimes Gatsby comes up in the color pink. "the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon" (Gatsby, p.136). • When Gatsby and Daisy are finally together, "there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea" (p. 91). • Pink symbolizes love and passion; understanding.

13. Red • Alive • Joy • Love • Shame • rage • The inside of Buchanan's home is in red. "We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space" (p. 13); • "Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light" (p. 22).

14. Light Colors • Light colors represent dreams or goals • Gatsby follows the pure light of the grail • Gatsby is reintroduced to Daisy on a dewy bright morning.

15. Dark Colors • Dark colors are the realities of Gatsby's dream-like life. • The Valley of Ashes is the stark opposition to East and West Egg All of Gatsby's parties are held at night and are bright with a false light.