Symbols and Symbolism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby :: Great Gatsby Essays

Symbolism in The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald tried to accent the point that money does not breed happiness. Money causes people to become envious, greedy, and jealous. It compels people to show a persona of arrogance and creates a haze of fog in the air of the world around them. They begin to become oblivious of the outside world and think of themselves as a higher being. This causes lack of acceptance for their responsibilities. I thing the author was also trying to show us that sometimes one can hold on to a dream for so long, and try so hard to achieve it that it can leave you in misery instead of happiness. Creating the reverse of it's intent. F. Scott uses a color scheme to show many emotions of characters in this story. The ultimate factor for almost every action within the story is money, the color green. This color shows the envy, greed, and jealousy that make up this story. Green is not only the color of money and the color most notably associated with greed, but it is also the color of the light on Daisy's dock. The same dock light that Gatsby spent so many nights gazing at. This is no coincidence, F.S.F. wanted to express to his readers the symbolism behind the color. Gatsby envied Tom because he knew that Daisy needed a wealthy man to take care of her. And as he was building his wealth, Gatsby would look over the lake toward that green light with envy and await the day he would be good enough for Daisy. The use of white, in reference to Daisy's wardrobe, symbolizes her laziness and uselessness within the story. She is completely devoid of any knowledge of the outside world, always lost in pointless thought. Something that I found quite apparent was her obviously shallow, money grubbing motives. For example, when she is taken into Gatsby's home for a tour, she is shown Gatsby's beautiful imported shirts. Daisy begins to cry, saying that these shirts are so beautiful. But what she is really expressing is her envy and jealousy of Gatsby's new riches and all of his elaborate material possessions. One form of symbolism that I found very interesting was Scott's use of the billboard ad containing the huge eyes of one Dr.