The Great Gatsby Essay example

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Sheena Edquiban
Ms. Kim
AP LAC, 4°
March 18, 2014
The Great Gatsby Final Draft In the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it tends to exemplify the theme of the how the “American Dream” was whisked away during the 1920’s. The novel features a lot of immoral people that is shown to take advantage of money and such a lavish lifestyle and forgetting what it was like to actually earn your money through hard work. All through which is displayed found through color symbolizations. Daisy, sweet, beautiful women, is projected to be the most corrupt throughout the novel, and is already well represented through her name. The color green is well tied together along with Gatsby and Daisy, as blue is too associated throughout the novel as well. The most consistent, corrupted character throughout the novel is exposed to be Daisy. Although she is driven to have charm and beauty, this discreetly covers her selfish and corrupt actions as well as her thoughts. She is conveyed constantly wearing “white, and their [Daisy and Jordan] dresses were rippling and fluttering,” (Fitzgerald 8). Daisy’s name already gives off the picture of an actual flower, the daisy. The flower contains white petals, and yellow in the middle. The white symbolizes great innocence and purity, and the yellow is seen to stand for evil due to not being as pure as white. Due to the imagery of the two women’s dresses dancing in the wind, this could already be portrayed as innocence. She is stuck up and doesn’t necessarily care about anyone but herself. Daisy is fragile and beautiful however; she does carry that characteristic within herself of being evilly corrupt, but blinds us through her sophistications and beauty. This allows Daisy to easily take advantage of people and their feelings, like Gatsby’s, to get what she wants.
The color green is portrayed in the setting at the end of the first chapter. When Gatsby was out one night staring at the stars, “…he [Gatsby] stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way... and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock,” (Fitzgerald 20-21). The reason why Gatsby had owned that mansion on West Egg was so that he could visibly see Daisy’s dock directly across from him which was East Egg. The green light symbolizes Gatsby’s long-awaited dreams and hopes for his future. Being that a green light was shining at him, draws a connection to a stoplight which means “go,” this is Gatsby’s sign or “green light” to go and chase after what he really wants. As he is seen reaching out at the green light, he discovers that what he really wants is Daisy and after that moment of self-realization, he is seen to make an effort to get in touch with her and get her back to rekindle their past relationship. However, he tends to forget about everything else and makes his life revolve around Daisy and getting to her. Also, due to the color green, it also symbolizes wealth, being the color of money. Since the green light was shown on East Egg, this could easily signify the wealth that was there as well. In connection to the Buchanan’s lawn being so green also pinpoints that they had water supply and had the ability to maintain its health possibly through gardeners which also depicts a rich lifestyle. The color blue is significantly used throughout the book but very inconspicuously. Blue is seen in Mr. Wilson’s eyes, on clothing, and in Gatsby’s garden which all ties together to symbolize poverty. This color is relatable to white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs which were two popular categorized occupations to fall under in the 1960’s. Since Mr. Wilson was a car mechanic and performed physical labor, he is categorized to be a blue-collared worker, which is probably why Fitzgerald contained such a specific detail of him having blue eyes in the novel. On summer nights Gatsby’s gardens were a famous attraction, “In his blue gardens men and girls came and
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