Symbolism

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** Symbolism in The Great Gatsby ** ** 25 Symbols in The Great Gatsby ** 1) Gray is the colour for dreariness. It symbolizes the lack of life and/or spirit. It is the place of no hope, no future. In the novel the valley of ashes everything is covered in gray dust-even the people. This would not be a place where you would want to be. There is a sense of decay about the place.
 * COLOUR SYMBOLISMS: **

2) White is the colour that has the deeper meaning of false purity or goodness. Daisy and Jordan are always seen in white. Also, Gatsby, when he wanted to meet Daisy again for the first time in 5 years, wore a white suit as if to show that he was good and pure.

3) Green represents so many things in this novel. One thing it means is hope: something to hope for, to reach out for, and a hope of new beginnings. For example the green light that is at the end of Daisy’s dock. In the first chapter Gatsby is reaching out for the light, clutching for it. He is reaching out for his hope of Daisy and a life with her. Green also represents wealth and prosperity. Both of these meanings correlate with each other because in the novel, wealth is something to hope for and to reach out for: The American Dream.

4) Red represents blood and death, as in the bloody death of Myrtle.

5) Yellow is in many facets of the book. Yellow in general means corruptness and things that sour and go bad. Yellow leaves represent decay and corruptness. The yellow of Gatsby’s car represents corrupt dishonesty and deception.

7) Gold represents wealth, but, more so, the show of wealth. Gatsby tried to win Daisy back by his parties and the show of wealth. The fact that he failed in this attempt obviously has a message of its own.

8) Myrtle, Tom’s mistress, epitomizes the idea of a shrub that supports life, and vitality because she is full of life, and makes spontaneous decisions.
 * SYMBOLISM OF PEOPLE: **

9) Daisy embodies a fragile flower, because she is a fragile person who can’t make up her own mind.

10) Tom represents power, but mostly the abuse of the power that he has been given.

11) Nick is someone who stands to the side. He has his own opinion, but he doesn’t always express it. However he was one of the main people who connected Gatsby to Daisy, which turned out to be a really bad thing. He was like the un-innocent bystander.

12) Gatsby represents the result of a dream deferred. He overestimated what it would be like with Daisy, so much that she could never in all her life live up to his expectations. The more that the hope did not come alive, the more he dreamed, and that made it all the worse for him and Daisy.

13) There is a character that we hardly ever see, and we do not even know his true name, however he is truly imperative to the novel: Owl-eyes. He is someone who appears to be all knowing and/or all seeing. He is there for Gatsby when nearly no one else would be. He can be likened to God in this book, or the twisted twenties version of him.

14) Also, there is a correlation between three people: Gatsby, Myrtle, and Wilson. They are the only people to ever have truly loved, and they are the only three people who die. What does this tell us?

Besides the colours and people there are many things that add to the meaning and the depth of the novel.
 * MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOLISMS: **

15) The billboard of T.J. Eckleburg. The billboard stands over the valley of ashes and consists of really big eyes and even bigger spectacles. The key meaning of T.J. Eckleburg is that he watches over everything that goes on in the valley in an omniscient and omnipresent manner.

16) Additionally, T.J. Eckleburg’s glasses have yellow rims which symbolize corruptness in two different ways. (1) That all he sees is corruptness, and,(2) he sees through the eyes of someone who is corrupt.

17) The empty face represents the hollowness of people and their materialistic values.

18) The empty face also represents an empty, apathetic, and dead God.

19) The summer is hot, and it represents the heat and boiling point of the story and or conflict. It is no surprise that the climax of the novel occurs on the hottest day of the year.

20) Cars are a status symbol and represent carelessness and/or recklessness. Pay particular attention to Jordan’s comments about how she hates careless people.

21) Spring represents a new beginning, a clean slate to mess up all over again.

22) Another significant symbol that is exemplified throughout the novel is eggs. The East and West eggs are where they live, and there is always drama going on. An egg is white on the outside, and yellow on the inside. So on both sides of the spectrum there is deception everywhere. An egg symbolizes a false show of purity on the outside, but rotten and corrupt on the inside.

23) East egg also represents old money that has been passed down from generation to generation.

24) West egg also represents new money that the people who live inside there have earned.

25) There is always constant bickering between the eggs because the west eggers are rowdy and don’t know how to handle themselves amongst the continually wealthy people.

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