Great Gatsby Color Connection

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James Alesi Mrs. Bailey English 11, Period 3 March 21, 2012 Gatsby’s True Colors Authors not only write books, they know how to use the power of the pen to place ideas inside your mind without you even knowing it. In the novel, The Great Gatsby the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald is a master of this art; he uses color connotation in his writing to give the readers a better understanding of the characters he creates. He achieves this by describing something as a certain color and that object described will have some significance or ownership of the character he wants that color to correspond with. Fitzgerald does not pick just any color, he picks a color to give the reader an emotional response. This response can be dissected by the reader in which they can figure out themselves what might be going on inside a character's head rather than being told in a cut-and-dry manner. In Fitzgerald's color connotation influences the thoughts of the reader about the main character, Jay Gatsby. Color connotation helps the reader connect what is really going on in Gatsby’s mind, some of which Gatsby can not connect himself. An example where the narrator, Nick Caraway watches Gatsby as he is reaching his arms out toward a distant light, "I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light" (P.25). The color of the distant green light resembles the hope Gatsby has to be reunited with his long lost love, Daisy. This is addressed more clearly later in the story when the reader finds out that the green light in the distance is a light at the end of Daisy's dock, further assisting this idea of hope. This color helps the reader understand Gatsby's loneliness and his longing for Daisy, who he believes is his true love. Green is not the only color that describes Gatsby, for blue describes him also, "He had come a long way to this blue lawn" (P.171). This quote

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