Colors are used extensively in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby to represent ideas, emotions, and characteristics of different people and events. The most prominent colors used are green, white, yellow, blue, and gray. Each color has a deeper meaning and helps convey the ideas that Fitzgerald wishes to express about wealth, social class, innocence, and more. Understanding the symbolic meaning of colors in The Great Gatsby provides a deeper analysis of the text.
Green
The color green in The Great Gatsby is associated with money, greed, envy, and wealth.
Green first appears in Chapter 1 when Nick describes Gatsby stretching his arms out towards the “single green light” across the bay. This green light is located at the end of Daisy’s dock and represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. It symbolizes his longing for Daisy and the new wealthy life he wants to live with her. The green light is an image of aspiration that drives Gatsby.
Later in the novel, green is again connected to money when Gatsby takes Nick to lunch and shows him all his expensive imported items. Nick describes Gatsby’s lavish collection of shirts as “shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray.” The rainbow of colors on Gatsby’s shirts represent his extremely wealthy lifestyle funded by criminal activities.
Green is also associated with the Valley of Ashes, which represents the moral decay of society and people who fell short of their dreams. The Valley is described as a “desolate area of land” with “ash-grey men” who “move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” Grey is a dull, lifeless version of green that represents the working class’ unfulfilled desires.
Overall, the color green in Gatsby stands for wealth, greed, jealousy, money, and the unattainable hopes and dreams of different characters.
White
White represents purity, innocence, and illusion in The Great Gatsby. It is heavily associated with Daisy Buchanan.
Daisy first appears in Chapter 1 wearing an elaborate white dress and Nick describes her as giving off an “excitement in her voice as though her heart was in her mouth.” Her white dress establishes her outward innocence in spite of her privileged background.
Daisy’s association with white continues in her Louisville home, which has a “wine-colored rug” with “bouquets of roses” and “bright ripe strawberries.” The redness of the rug and strawberries represent passion, which starkly contrasts with Daisy’s cool white innocence.
In Chapter 7, Daisy’s true nature is exposed when she rejects Gatsby and refuses to leave Tom after learning of his affair. At this point, Nick realizes that “her face was lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth.” Underneath her innocent white exterior, Daisy has a fiery passion and greed for status and wealth.
The color white in Gatsby symbolizes Daisy’s pure and innocent facade, which covers up her true inner desires for status and wealth over true love. It represents the illusion she creates with her privilege.
Yellow
In The Great Gatsby, yellow symbolizes moral corruption, death, false wealth, and tragedy.
The first connection between yellow and corruption comes from Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby’s shady business partner who fixed the 1919 World Series. Nick meets Wolfshiem at a small, yellow-lit table in a crowded restaurant, suggesting his corrupt dealings.
After Myrtle’s deadly car accident, Nick observes a billboard advertising an eye doctor with a pair of yellow spectacles painted between the eyes. This “pair of enormous yellow spectacles” suggest the eyes of a corrupt God who witnessed Myrtle’s death but did nothing to stop it.
When Gatsby takes Nick on a tour of his mansion, Nick is stunned by the almost comical excess, describing Gatsby’s garden with “beds of crimson roses” and even “bright ripe strawberries.” The ridiculousness of having roses and strawberries in the heat represents Gatsby’s excessive lifestyle and over-the-top attempts to prove his wealth to impress Daisy.
Finally, yellow is associated with Gatsby’s death when Nick finds him floating dead in his pool on an “autumn night” when “leaves were falling.” The falling yellow leaves symbolize the decline and tragic ending of Gatsby’s dreams.
Blue
Blue represents ideals, dreams, and illusions in The Great Gatsby. It is linked to Gatsby more than any other character.
When Daisy weeps after seeing Gatsby’s shirts, Nick observes that “the tears coursed down her cheeks — little rivers, winding through her face, twisting here and disappearing into her hair.” Her tears represent disillusionment with her life, showing that reality does not match the ideal she constructed. The blue of her tears dissolution of her romantic dreams.
Gatsby looks up to the blue gardens of Daisy’s mansion as symbols of her elite world that he wishes to enter. Blue gardens represent the ideals and illusions that make up Daisy’s world.
The most famous passage involving the color blue is when Nick imagines what America must have looked like before Europeans arrived: “For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” Here blue symbolizes the dream and wonder of possibilities that represented America before the age of urbanization and materialism.
Gray
The color gray represents lifelessness, boredom, and nihilism in The Great Gatsby. It is heavily connected to the Valley of Ashes.
The Valley of Ashes is described as a “desolate area of land” scattered with “ash-grey men” with “ash-grey faces” who move “dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” Grey represents the lack of life, dreams, and purpose of the people living here.
At Eckleburg’s eyes, the billboard portraying a fading advertisement for an oculist, George Wilson remarks that “God sees everything” to which Myrtle responds “That’s an advertisement.” The lifeless gray eyes looking over the Valley add to the sense of meaninglessness and emptiness of people tied to the ash heaps.
When Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson are talking, she expresses that “neither of them can stand the person they’re married to.” Their affair takes place in the grey, barren Valley showing the lack of fulfillment in their lives.
The color grey reveals the working class’ unfulfilled desires and the sense of futility, boredom, and purposelessness controlling their lives.
Conclusion
In summary, Fitzgerald uses colors symbolically throughout The Great Gatsby to represent ideas and feelings associated with different people and events. Green symbolizes money, envy, and Gatsby’s longing for Daisy. White represents purity and innocence associated with Daisy’s outward facade. Yellow is tied to corruption, false wealth, and tragedy. Blue symbolizes ideals, illusions, and the wonder of dreams that are later crushed by reality. Finally, gray represents the lifelessness, boredom, and nihilism felt by the people living in the Valley of Ashes and tied to the working class. Analyzing the deeper symbolic meanings of different colors used in the novel provides rich insight into Fitzgerald’s messages about wealth, social class, disillusionment, morals, and the American dream. Color analysis is a key part of understanding The Great Gatsby on a meaningful level.
