Great Gatsby Essay

Jasper Lu
ELE4 Pd 6
Mr. Labonne
March 18, 2013
The Picture of Jay Gatsby
If a parent gives her son a tray of watercolor paints and a canvas with the goal to paint a
picture for her, he will most likely give a painting indistinguishable from paint splatter. However,
if a professional artist like Picasso was presented with the same items and task, he would
probably have been able to create an amazing painting worth much money. Unlike in the child’s
painting, the colors in professional’s painting would all have a certain meaning; there would be a
reason for every color’s existence in the painting, whether it was meant to symbolize something
or if the color just looked nice in that spot. Like the professional had a meaning behind every
color chosen in his painting, F Scott Fitzgerald also had a motive behind every color he used to
describe an object in his novel, The Great Gatsby. White, yellow, grey, green – all of these
colors and several others were all chosen specifically by Fitzgerald to symbolize an idea in his
novel, whether that idea was lifelessness, vitality, or innocence.
Yellow was a very prevalent color in the novel, meant to represent wealth and riches
because of its similarity in color to gold. At Gatsby’s party, the orchestra is described as “playing
yellow cocktail music” (44). The use of synesthesia in the description of the music as yellow
shows that the music is both high quality and played by an expensive, professional band.
Gatsby’s car is also described as being yellow. However, while it is representative of Gatsby’s
wealth, it is also representative of the rich people of West Egg as a whole. An over the top
display of Gatsby’s riches, Gatsby’s car shows that the color yellow is not used to represent
wealth, but more specifically the wealth of the old rich. Yellow may look like gold, but it is not
true gold. It is false gold, similar to the members of the new rich society who, from an outside
perspective, look as if they belong with the old rich, but are not a part of their society. Fitzgerald
even goes so far as to describe both Daisy and Jordan as golden at one point in the narrative, but
never Gatsby. Gatsby himself is rarely described in the story, but when he is he is never
described as being golden. Yellow is meant to represent the wealthy, but it is not the only color
that represents this. The colors yellow and gold are both used to symbolize two very similar, but
different ideas – yellow is meant to symbolize the wealth of the new rich, whereas gold is meant
to symbolize the wealth of old rich.
Yellow is not the only color meant to represent something in the narrative – grey is
another symbol, associated with lifelessness. Perhaps the biggest thing in the novel associated
with the color grey is the valley of ashes. Also associated with grey is the car repairman George
B. Wilson. He was described as white ashen dust in his hair and dark suit, the same color as the
grey on his wall. Because it is used to describe the valley of ashes, a very barren place located
between West Egg and New York, and George B Wilson, a spiritless character tired of life, the
color grey was obviously meant by Fitzgerald to represent lifelessness and barrenness.
The color blue in The Great Gatsby is used to symbolize hope – Gatsby’s hope to marry
Daisy, and Wilson’s hope for a better life. When Wilson saw Tom enter his shop, “a damp gleam
of hope sprang into his light blue eyes” (29). It is significant that, after describing Wilson as an
unremarkable man in the previous sentence, Wilson is described as having hope in his blue eyes.
Also, when Gatsby meets Dan Cody, he is given a blue coat as a gift. Prior to meeting Dan Cody,
Gatsby was merely named James Gatz. His new name, Jay Gatsby, represented his dreams of
becoming more than he was at that time – rich, important, successful. Since the blue coat was
given to Jay during his “rebirth” as Jay Gatsby, the color blue can also represent dreams and
illusions. The idea of blue as representing illusions can also be applied to the painting of Doctor
T. J. Eckleburg. On a huge billboard in the middle of nowhere, Doctor T. J. Eckelburg’s blue
eyes are like god’s eyes watching over his people – though in this case there are no much people
to watch over. Wilson, who begins talking to the billboard after his wife dies as if he was talking
to god, believes in this illusion. The color blue is used many times in the novel, and is used to
describe many different people or objects, to symbolize illusions, dreams, and, most of all, hope.