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Symbolism of Colors

Page history last edited by Molly Gimbel 12 years, 10 months ago

Colors have always been more then just shades of colors in novels for centurys. Colors play roles in books and short stories by symbolizing or demostrating main ideas. In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald colors play a huge role in the novel as symbolizing main themes and ideas. The novel The Color Purple, by Alice Walker also has many colors that represent just more then hues of colors on a house or a dress. A color is even in the title of the book which almost plays the part of foreshadowing in a sense that the hue of purple will play a dominant role in a book with many themes. Color is one of the main themes in both of these novels, and even though color usually just for fashion, and appearance, in both of these novels color plays a major importance.

 

In The Great Gatsby  colors play a huge role in the main themes in the novel. The color white appears multiple times in the novel, but it mainly occurs when Gatsby and Daisy rekindle their relationship for the first time since they were in love and torn apart from the war. The color white in the novel represents purity and a new beginning. The reason why the both wear white is that it symbolizes that they both want to start all over and pretend in there own little world that they are still pure. Daisy has a husband since Gatsby left for the war, there for leaving her un-pure and tainted in a sense. At first when they rekindle they feel exremely awkward and then once Nick leaves after he feels as if he is a third wheel, he comes back in two hours to his surprise Gatsby and Daisy are kicking it off and the sparks start to fly as they reminisce on what they used to be. All was smiles and fun until Gatsby showed Daisy the closet filled with all the fancy colored expensive shirts. In his closet there is every color shirt you can imagine, pink, red, pink, orange, green, blue, light blue, purple, lavender. All these colors represent the different emotions and the meanings of the colors that Daisy and Gatsby could have shared together over the years if she had waited for him. 

 

The color purple represents all the good things in the world that God creates for men and women to enjoy. At the beginning of the book, you could say that Celie has no sense of the color purple. She has such a horrible life, she’s not stopping to smell the roses, she’s just surviving. By surviving, we mean, she’s practically dead emotionally, but is physically alive. Shug is the person who points out the concept of the color purple to Celie. Shug says that God does little things for people, like creating the color purple, just to make people happy and give them pleasure in their lives. God wants people to notice the beauty of his/her creation. According to Shug, enjoying the beauty of creation means all of God’s creation, including sex. Shug teaches Celie that enjoying life is exactly what God wants us to do; it’s a way of expressing our love for God. As Celie does learn to love life, she decorates her bedroom in her own home as all purple and red.

 

In The Color Purple the predominant color is Purple, and in The Great Gatsby the predominant color is White. Color can represent almost anything in books, in The Great Gatsby it is mostly just painting a picture of how the characters are feeling. The color white is used to show how Gatsby and Daisy want to get married to each other, and also to show how they wish they were both still virgins. F. Scott Fitzgerald also uses dark color imagery to paint a picture of the different settings in the book. For example, to show the terrible the conditions are in the Valley of Ashes. 

 

 

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“Gatsby's Clothing.” Rev. of Gatsbys Clothing, by Meredith Hughes and Jamie Wheeler. eNotes.

               eNotes, 5 Nov. 2007. Web. 17 May 2011.

               <http://www.enotes.com/‌great-gatsby/‌group/‌discuss/‌gatsbys-clothing-777>.

 

“Great Gatsby Society and Class Quotes.” Shmoop. Shmoop University Inc., n.d. Web. 17 May

               2011.  <http://www.shmoop.com/‌great-gatsby/‌society-class-quotes.html>.

 

Huber, Herbert. “Use Of Colors in The Great Gatsby.” Lesekost. N.p., 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 May

               2011. <http://www.lesekost.de/‌amlit/‌hhl252c.htm>.

 

 

 

Comments (3)

gterlizzi12@... said

at 12:05 pm on May 17, 2011

In The Color Purple the predominant color is Purple, and in The Great Gatsby the predominant color is White. Color can represent almost anything in books, in The Great Gatsby it is mostly just painting a picture of how the characters are feeling. The color white is used to show how Gatsby and Daisy want to get married to each other, and also to show how they wish they were both still virgins. F. Scott Fitzgerald also uses dark color imagery to paint a picture of the different settings in the book. For example, to show the terrible the conditions are in the Vally of Ashes.

GTMK 107

sdunne12@mtlakes.org said

at 10:19 pm on May 19, 2011

I agree that F. Scott Fitzgerald uses color symbolism to the extreme. It seems that almost every color in the novel stands for something. For instance, gray and other vague colors seem to stand for general lifelessness. This is predominantly found in the valley of ashes, and the people who inhabit it. The best example being Wilson, a man who goes from working hard and trying to make a living in the beginning of the novel, to a man who has finally acknowledged his wife’s infidelity and is completely beaten down mentally and emotionally. Another main color symbolized in The Great Gatsby is green, aside from the normal readers thought that green is associated with money, and wealthy people, green is mainly found in the light at the back of Daisy and Tom's house. Gatsby is described many times by Fitzgerald gazing at this light from across the water that separates the Buchanan's and Gatsby's towns, East and West Egg. The green light is a strong representation of the future for Gatsby and the extreme hope that his never-dying love for Daisy will be returned once again from her. However towards the end of this novel, Gatsby’s dream becomes less and less of a possible reality, leaving Gatsby depressed and hopeless. And consequently changing the meaning of the light from his relationship with Daisy, and the hope of it rekindling, to a reminder to him of what could have been.

SD 240

pbreslauer12 said

at 1:33 pm on May 20, 2011

There are many colors in The Great Gatsby and all of them represent something. For instance white is a big color. It is the color of the car Daisy drives to Nicks house when she meets Gatsby again. White is also the color of her dress. This symbolizes baptism, or a new beginning. It is also raining when she arrives at Nick’s to symbolize baptism.

Grey is also another color that is predominant in the book. It is mostly referred to the Valley of Ashes. The Valley of Ashes is a place where all the poor people live. There is no life here. It is also where Myrtle is killed. When the wealthy people come through on their way to the city, their bright colored cars become very vibrant against the grey and gloomy background. The Valley of Ashes is a life-less place and the only color there is grey.

PB
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