University of California, San Diego
Class: Major American Writers
Winter Quarter 2004

The Symbolic Use of the Color Green in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
"The Great Gatsby"

by: Julia Weinmann
 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby was written in a time of social decadence, in which values no longer played an important role among the newly rich and wannabe famous, whose life was about parties, money and affairs. On the surface, Fitzgerald’s story also seems to deal with success, wealth and love. Although the superficial life of the rich and powerful is a major theme in The Great Gatsby, however, it mostly explores underlying complexities and personalities and in this way reveals the negative side of the American Dream to the reader. Corruption, despair and desperate desire come along with idealism, faith and illusions. The protagonist, Jay Gatsby, personifies the American Dream as he is a man with a dubious background who managed to accomplish a luxurious style of living and to achieve everything he wanted to have by his own efforts – except of his great love, that is Daisy. The Great Gatsby is built upon the desperate desires of the protagonist and reveals a glance behind the glittering facade of the rich. Fitzgerald manages to draw the reader’s attention to significant details and symbols in the text in order to make one think about socalled ‘truths’ and about the sham reality of a society that tries to keep up appearances. Consequently, symbols are an essential device of adding profundity to the text and of allowing the reader to gain insight into a character’s personality. The most significant symbolism applied in The Great Gatsby is color symbolism, green, white, gray, blue and yellow being the most prominent colors throughout the novel. In this paper, I will concentrate on analyzing Fitzgerald’s symbolic use of the color green based on the most significant examples and thus try to expose the meaning of its appliance in regard to society and the protagonists in the novel.

Although it is not the color mostly applied in the novel, green is assumably the most meaningful color Fitzgerald uses as a symbolic device of revealing ideas. In The Great Gatsby, green is predominantly associated with Gatsby’s character as it is mainly used to emphasize his desire and his unfulfilled wish to win his love Daisy back. As he has already achieved everything in life concerning material success, wealth and power, Gatsby’s only aim left is to reach Daisy’s heart. Therefore, the color green stands for his never-ending hope for her love and functions as a symbol of his desire, as it is mostly associated with the green light at Daisy’s dock. Throughout the novel, the green light consequently functions as a key symbol that carries a deep meaning. The initial appearance of the green light occurs when Nick Carraway sees Gatsby for the first time. He watches him standing lonely on his blue lawn, which is part of his world of imagination, and Gatsby “stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and [...] he was trembling” (p. 31). This illustration shows his strong longing for Daisy and thus for the fulfillment of his dream which even affects him physically. However, the green light is too far for him to reach and will always stay out of reach as for him Daisy remains an unattainable princess. Only in an imaginary world of fairytales they could be re-united. Indeed, Gatsby does not want to disavow the forlornness of his dream although he assumably knows about it (this will be examined later on) – and so does the narrator when he says “I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away” (p. 31). Here the emphasis is to be put on “far away” which signifies unattainability. Besides, the single light does not yet carry any meaning for Nick as it looks tiny and insignificant to him.

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