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Introduction to Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby

Directions: Use your color symbolism chart to help you analyze the use of color in this novel. The quotes have been given to you, but you need to find the passages in your book so you know the context of the quote. Sometimes you will need to read more of the passage than what is listed on the paper, so that is another reason to refer to your book. Your goal is to analyze each passage and make the connection to the possible symbolism of the quote. What was Fitzgerald’s purpose in using that color to describe that character or that situation?

“Passage from Text” (page #) Associated Characters and/or

Situation

Color(s) and Symbolism

Word(s)

Inference: Explanation of Symbolism

“Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water” (5). “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay…The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold…” (6)

“We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end… Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor” (7-8).

Reread the last paragraph of chapter 1 (20-21).

Read the first two paragraphs of chapter 2. What other words also support the mood of the color?

“She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York. At the news-stand she bought a copy of Town Tattle and a moving-picture magazine, and in the station drug-store some cold cream, and a small flask of perfume. Up-stairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxicabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender colored with gray upholstery…” (27).

Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room”(30).

Find another quote that has a significant color reference, write it below, and then analyze it.