In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, the yellow car is an important symbol that first appears in Chapter 7. This car is driven by Jay Gatsby, the mysterious millionaire who is infatuated with Daisy Buchanan. The ownership and history of this yellow car helps reveal key details about Gatsby’s background that were previously unknown.
Descriptions of the Yellow Car
When the yellow car first appears in the novel, Nick Carraway, the narrator, describes it in vivid detail:
“I saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees — he was leaning down from the top of a white palace — and his hair blew softly in the exciting new wind. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…and then lost in the bleak vast spaces of the sky, perceived that the goal was unreachable — so high that his right hand went backward into the open door to steady him from falling as he leaned. Then he kissed her, and as if that was the only thing he had been born to do, he went down the white steps with his beautiful fair hair blown tremulously in the wind. They were swallowed up instantaneously as completely as if a trap door had opened under them.
I couldn’t tell what the car really was, it was so covered with dust from its long existence in the garage, but I saw that it was a rich cream color and had a rule leather top.”
This passage highlights the otherworldliness and dream-like quality of Gatsby’s car, as if it has emerged from a “secret place” to transport Gatsby and Daisy to their own private world. The yellow color and luxury leather interior hint at the car’s value and importance to Gatsby.
Later, when Gatsby takes Nick for a ride in the car, Nick observes even more details:
“He threw the lever, and we backed up into a whirl at the station. The drive was a long panoramic hall — a world at dusk, unfolding at high speeds. Over his shoulder the violet sky was tiered with thin fleecy clouds and in deepening shafts of soft Brazilliance. All the shadows were dissolving into a purple bloom that spread slowly over everything. The lonely gardener, who had been watering flowers, was fast disappearing behind thick olive trees. Red and yellow plows were turning brown acres. Above a cluster of anonymous rich estates the faint red roofs of a village peeped demurely through the trees. And the eyes of Doctor T. Eckleberg came and went with slowly pale-lashing solemnity through the growing dusk.”
Again, Fitzgerald uses lyrical imagery to convey the dreamlike, romantic quality of Gatsby’s car gliding through the evening landscape. The emphasis on colors like yellow, violet, and red lend an aura of richness and sensuality to the vehicle.
Gatsby’s Backstory
As the story progresses, and the history of the car becomes clear, it reveals key details about Gatsby’s past that help explain his obsession with accumulating enormous wealth and status symbols.
Through conversations with Nick, Gatsby explains that he comes from humble beginnings in North Dakota and Minnesota but has spent years amassing a large fortune through mysterious means (later revealed to be through bootlegging and organized crime).
The flashy yellow car is just one acquisition that Gatsby uses to build up an image of himself as an elite member of high society, worthy of the upper-class Daisy’s love.
Nick observes:
“Gatsby’s gorgeous car lurched up the rocky drive to my door and gave out a burst of melody from its three-noted horn.”
The car’s loud horn and showy exterior represent Gatsby’s excessive need to announce himself and grab attention as someone important.
At one point, Gatsby even admits the car is not truly his – he borrowed it from a wealthy friend in Chicago. This reveal underscores the facade Gatsby has created, showing he feels compelled to surround himself with impressive belongings to seem successful and wealthy enough for Daisy, no matter if they are borrowed or earned legitimately.
The Accident
In one climactic scene, Daisy is driving Gatsby’s yellow car back from New York when she accidentally hits and kills Tom Buchanan’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson. The vivid descriptions of the car emphasize its role in the tragic accident:
“They saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long.”
Here the speeding yellow car literally rips away Myrtle’s life, showing the destructiveness and carelessness it brings about when Daisy and Gatsby get carried away in it. The car later proves to be the evidence that wrongly implicates Gatsby in Myrtle’s death.
The Car’s Destruction
After Myrtle’s death, her grieving husband George Wilson becomes obsessed with punishing the driver of the yellow car that killed her. This leads him to Gatsby’s house, where tragically, he shoots and kills Gatsby while he is lounging in the pool.
Nick observes the fate of the grand yellow car after Gatsby’s death:
“I walked along a lane with the team and turned in at the gates of Gatsby’s drive. The mattress and pneumatic seat had been unloaded and the car was once more crowded with the owner’s dubious furniture. But Windward Hall looked blank and its drive was bare. I believed though that Gatsby would have wanted it that way – would have thought it fitting and symbolic to die unburied among the entrances to sumptuous houses with no doorkeeper at hand.”
With Gatsby gone, the car loses its beauty, mystery, and appeal – deflated and loaded up with useless junk, it sits unused outside Gatsby’s abandoned mansion. Its original owner murdered, the fate of the yellow car reinforces the collapse of Gatsby’s fantastical dream and hollow lifestyle.
Conclusion
In summary, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the yellow car in The Great Gatsby to symbolize Jay Gatsby’s excessive wealth and cultured facade, as well as the aimlessness and emptiness of the privileged social class. The car’s outsized role reveals key biographical details about Gatsby’s humble past and his desperate attempts to win Daisy’s love. Daisy’s reckless hit-and-run in the car leads to catastrophe, exemplifying how Gatsby and Daisy’s unrestrained romantic feelings wreak havoc. Finally, the car deteriorates along with Gatsby’s dreams, underscoring the fragility and impermanence of Gatsby’s aspirational but artificial lifestyle. Through its varied appearances and rich descriptions, the vivid yellow car helps drive the plot, characterization, themes, and deeper meanings of this celebrated American novel.