Colors & Significance:
Gatsby: Pink suit, silver shirt, gold tie, caramel suit, apple colored shirt, Yellow car, yellow cocktail
music, yellow tables, girls in yellow.
Yellow=richness, wealth/ also means decay
Daisy: White dress, white girlhood, white roadster…glow had faded
Usually white rep. purity and innocence, but for her it shows her emptiness and shallowness.
Daisy=unfaithfulness
Tom: Straw-haired, shining eyes, glistening boots…not much color, but it is a lot of crisp shine. Suit of
armor…cruel, brutal
Cruelness & harshness
George: Light blue eyes, cement color, white as the dust, pale hair…ghostlike-absence of color
Washed out, sad shadow of a person.
Myrtle: dark blue dress, no gleam, brown figured muslin, cream colored chiffon…no real color- earth tones
Unbecoming, lack of taste, vitality & sturdiness
Nick: White flannels to Gatsby’s party, Green and gold…colors stop about ¾ through the book this is because
Nick’s values change, he is less concerned with wealth and more concerned with friendship.
Jordan: White dress, autumn leaf yellow hair, slender golden arms gray, sun-streaked eyes.
More color than Daisy-more realistic than Daisy
Symbolism:
The valley of ashes: Poverty, hopelessness, wasteland, source of weakness rather than strength.
The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg: Omniscient power, fate
Green light: Unwavering hope, “go”
“Owl-eyed” man: Wisdom to see beyond appearance
Gatsby’s boyhood schedule: American dream, the desire to succeed
Gatsby’s Dream: American Dream, Daisy
East Egg: Old money, fashionable, traditional
West Egg: New money, Pretension, glittering
Themes
Money: Many people have become sadly disillusioned when money has failed to fulfill happiness.
Friendship: True friendship is as rare as a true work of art and is often created in the same environment.
Hypocrisy: Some identities are founded upon hypocrisy. (Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Gatsby?)
Carelessness: Carelessness can destroy
Dishonesty: Some identities are founded upon facades or illusions. (Tom, Daisy, Jordan)
The American Dream: can be corrupted (1) When impulse and appetite replace moral code and spiritual
value. (2) When materialism rather than spiritualism is emphasized.
Materialism “promises” the happiness that only spiritualism can bring.
Realists prefer painful reality to comfortable dreams,
The idealist or romantic is often content with deceptive visions.