...novel The Great Gatsby. It outlines the theme and develops the characters as the story progresses. In this essay I will show how certain symbolism connects to the characters and then I will explain the theme of the book in my eyes. Symbolism is used in one of major ways in this book either a color or a object representing something. The first piece of symbolism that is very important and widely used in the book is the color white. In the novel we are constantly hearing about white this and that but you ever stopped thought about how it is different for each character? Tom for example it is the fact that he is cheating on his wife and the constant covering up of that fact. For Gatsby it is the covering up of his past and how he truly came into his money. For Daisy it is the growing hatred for her husband which is unconventional at the time that is why Daisy says “it is best for a girl to be a pretty fool”. How it connects to the theme is that people are constantly scanning and finding a way to feign and con people out of what they want but maintaining the image of innocence....
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...The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby gives the readers a visual image of every character’s life by expressing their feelings; the colors are used very often as symbols that depict the person’s character and represents their behavior. The author utilized the colors white, green, red, blue, yellow, and gold. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is symbolic to the limitless promise of the dream Gatsby pursues. “Gatsby believed in the green light with such intensity that he did not realize his immature dream was unattainable from the start.”(Fitzgerald) Gatsby, was hoping that his American Dream would come true, it was his inspiration, his hope, and, ironically, his death and downfall. he was expecting to get married...
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...The American Dream F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby” symbolizing a few different topics. Many people who read the book gather different perspectives on what the it is symbolizing. When I read “The Great Gatsby” I gathered the impression that Fitzgerald was trying to symbolize the American Dream which was a very common dream during this time period. The American Dream meant that life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. Even though The Great Gatsby is a superlative fiction novel that symbolizes many different qualities of the life, the American Dream is symbolized the most through color representation, physical attributes, and the personalities of the...
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...The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald Chapter 6 Color Analysis May 24, 2011 Jay Gatsby | -“torn green jersey” (104): The color green symbolizes wealth and money. At this time in the book, Gatsby is working for Dan Cody, the guy who greatly supplies his wealth. The fact that the jersey is torn signifies the hard work that Gatsby demonstrates which then leads to him reaping the benefits of hard work. This section furthers to talk about his parents and how they were “unsuccessful farm people” also that Gatsby “was a son of God.” This is to say that although Gatsby’s parents were hard workers, they were unsuccessful in reaching their ideal “American dream”. Gatsby is currently making those dreams happen. He was helping to complete his father’s business, and is therefore relatively “a son of God.”---- The green jersey also symbolizes the new life that he yearns for that is full of wealth. Right at this stage in the book, Gatsby is called different names: Gatsby, James Gats, Jay Gatsby, young Gats: Each name recognizes a different stages of growth towards the Wealthy life.-“His brown, hardened body lived naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the bracing days.” (104): Brown is the color of earth, and of “getting down and dirty”. It further symbolizes the humility Gatsby underwent while with Dan Cody. Because the idea of wealth plagued Gatsby (“his heart was in a constant turbulent riot.”), he reaped the fruit of his labor as discussed with the color change discussed...
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...F. Scott Fitzgerald flawlessly. The Great Gatsby is a complex story that can be read in various ways to reach a deeper meaning of understanding. The book has an abundance of descriptive colors that expand on and support the story. These colors can be interpreted differently from person to person based on experiences and situations. In the novel, author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses them well to capture the characteristics of the story. However, this begs the question of how a factor as minor as color can affect so many aspects of...
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...people, and with that, are a few ways to solve it. Your life can be elegant and are to pursue the American Dream and the other is no one does anything and lets their life go nowhere and ends up lifeless. The Great Gatsby consists of key components that are here in our society. Such as elegance with ladies and gentleman walking around believing they are more important than others. There is also corruption that takes over leaving your life hard to make it through the day. In the end one outcome is being happy with the life there is and the other is saying that there is no better place and giving up and letting your life be hopeless and lifeless. Gatsby lives in West Egg the least fashionable of the two eggs and the more wealthy people live in East...
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...Color Symbolism Rough Draft Throughout life a person experiences and sees many different colors. All colors send a hidden message to a person. The message can be based on that person’s emotion or what they just simply think the color’s message is. “Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions”, this was said by Pablo Picasso. What he means by this is that colors can and will have a very big effect on your emotions and actions. Looking at certain colors can change your whole mood very quickly whether it’s great or awful. Some dark colors could cause you to be sad, angry, or gloomy. But when a person looks at bright, beautiful colors it can make them very happy, friendly and social. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby,...
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...Symbolism of Houses and Cars in The Great Gatsby Francis Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, is full of symbolism, which is portrayed by the houses and cars in an array of ways. One of the more important qualities of symbolism within The Great Gatsby is the way in which it is so completely incorporated into the plot and structure. Symbols, such as Gatsby's house and car, symbolize material wealth. Gatsby's house "[is] a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy" which contains "a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy" is a symbol of Gatsby's large illegal income (Fitzgerald 9). Gatsby's large income isn't enough to keep him happy. He needs "The house he feels he needs in order to win happiness" and it is also the perfect symbol of carelessness with money which is a major part of his personality (Bewley 24). Gatsby's house like his car symbolizes his vulgar and excessive trait of getting attention. Gatz's house is a mixture of different styles and periods which symbolizes an owner who does not know their true identity. The Buchanan's house is symbolic of their ideals. East Egg is home to the more prominent established wealth families. Tom's and Daisy's home is on the East Egg. Their house, a "red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay" with its "wine-colored rug[s]" is just as impressive as Gatsby's house but much more low-key (Fitzgerald 11) (13). East egg and Tom's home represents the established wealth and...
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...A Cruel Monster: Daisy Buchanan F. Scott Fitzgerald had many purposes in writing his novel The Great Gatsby, such as exposing the corrupt lives that were lived during the roaring twenties, especially within the rich. The main character, Nick Carraway, spends a lot of his time with his affluent friends Daisy Buchanan and Tom Buchanan. As the novel goes on one gets a closer look to see who the characters really are. Daisy marries Tom Buchanan instead of waiting for Jay Gatsby to return from the war and as a result Gatsby decides to dedicate the rest of his life to win Daisy over. He does this by becoming as rich as Daisy’s husband Tom, if not more. She is often associated with the color white which symbolizes much more than the color of her car or the color of her clothes. Fitzgerald uses the color white to convey a false sense of innocence to reveal Daisy Buchanan’s true selfish, and her heightened class conscious character to reveal the corrupt lives the rich live during this time period. It can be seen that Daisy never really cares for Gatsby and she just cares about herself and her future. One of the few accounts of the past that one gets to read without any biased opinions, is when Jordan Baker retells the story of the night before Daisy Fay becomes Daisy Buchanan. Daisy becomes extremely intoxicated and starts crying whilst holding a crumpled up letter in her hand: “She wouldn’t let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball...
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...question I settled on was: How does Fitzgerald use symbolism concerning the American dream? Fitzgerald uses personification and the colors: green, red, white, yellow, blue, grey, and purple to symbolize the truth and principles within and about the American dream. The colors mentioned the most and used to enforce a greater meaning in the Great Gatsby are: green, yellow, red, blue, grey and white. Each color is a crucial detail in the book relating to intentions and foreboding. Throughout the history of literature colors have been used as motif. *add quote about color motifs in literature* Red commonly means power, danger, passion and love. Yellow is associated...
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...such great meaning? When is wishing on a star different than wishing on a rock? What has to happen in order to make an object have meaning? What makes a star more important than a rock, or a green light at the end of a dock? In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the green light and the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg are symbolically different for everyone in the novel. The green light that appears at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock represents Gatsby’s hopes and wishes. "He stretched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious way..."(Fitzgerald 20). Gatsby is seen reaching out towards the green light,...
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...The Narrative Art of The Great Gatsby Introduction The Great Gatsby was written in 1925. The author, Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is one of the most outstanding writers in America. As a member of the “lost generation”, Fitzgerald made the short life of Gatsby epitome of the rise, boom and decline of the “American Dream” in “Jazz Age”. This novel shows us unusually rich literary and aesthetic connotation is has by its unique narrative perspective, the ups and downs of plot, superb accurate language, various rhetorical devices and vivid character images. To some extent, the reason why The Great Gatsby can become a famous classic work is that the author uses extraordinary narrative techniques in it. All the techniques are employed skillfully by Fitzgerald. The study of narrative art in this work has been highlighted in the research area in these years. Zhang Jinfeng(2001) analyzes the role of Nick in the novel from the its structure, themes and other aspects. Cheng Xilin(2009) uses the spatial narrative theory to discussed the space narrative art in The Great Gatsby from three aspects: the geography space, social space and the text space. Xiao Dongbo(2009) starts with the analysis on author and characters and expound the connotation of "American dream" and profoundly reveals the historical process of the formation, development and burst of the "American dream". Shang Guanghui(2011) analyzes The Great Gatsby from the narrators of the role and argues that the communication...
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...Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained...
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...and a high position in society. This symbolizes a big house, a nice car, fancy clothes and having money, but having all of these things are very unrealistic for Americans who start low in the economic class. Although this idea is the common representation of America, the land of freedom and opportunity, it is nothing more than an illusion; a dream that is unattainable in this present-day circumstances and time. The Great Gatsby, placed in the 1920s, clearly illustrates the idea of the American Dream and the corruption the Dream causes as a result of the characters trying to pursue it. So although America would like to think it’s providing a land of equal...
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...We often associate material gain with enjoyment and fulfillment, but we fail to understand the side most affected by the uninhibited pursuit of gratification. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the wealthy do just that; they climb the steps of social class by stepping over those who are poorer. In the novel, the lower-class face degradation caused by the wealthy’s often selfish desire for pleasure and satisfaction. Specifically, the Valley of Ashes symbolizes Fitzgerald’s criticism for that very inconsiderate pursuit of self-gain, which creates dire consequences for the poor. The negative language used to analyze the Valley illustrates Fitzgerald’s disapproval of the rich’s lack of consideration for others. When Nick describes the Valley,...
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