The Great Gatsby Color Green Analysis

Green; wealth, nature, health, fertility, and success. These things are linked to the color green, or are literally green themselves. Although these answers are correct, F. Scott Fitzgerald had a different idea in mind when writing his novel, The Great Gatsby. This thought provoking novel dives deep into the life of Nick Carraway and his neighbor Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is following his dreams with the help of Nick, but he never quite reaches them. While reading the novel, the color green is used to describe Gatsby’s hopes and dreams as they are right in front of him, but his dreams are slowly drifting away searching for a new beginning. Fitzgerald’s use of the color green throughout the novel illustrates how the American dream takes hard work and
For instance, when Gatsby and Daisy are sitting together, he mentions his dreams and how they are no longer achievable. Gatsby says, “Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (Fitzgerald 98). Since the green light at the end of the dock represents Gatsby’s dreams, he is pointing out that the magical thought of getting back with Daisy is now gone, as he is too late to achieve that dream. Similarly, at the end of the novel, Nick is thinking about Gatsby. While he is thinking, he says, “I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (Fitzgerald 189). Nick is thinking about how Gatsby saw the light at Daisy’s house, and purposefully got a house directly across from it, it shows that Gatsby had a dream to get back together with Daisy. Right after that, he says that Gatsby was close to achieving his dream, but he failed to grab it while he could, because Daisy chose to stay with her husband, Tom. Not only can people fail to meet dreams, but that same exact failure can lead to a new beginning. “And to the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes―a fresh, green breast of the new world” (Fitzgerald 189). In other words, this explains a new beginning by using the words ‘fresh’ and ‘new world’, to point out that even though you can fail to reach a dream, it is able to create space for a new beginning. Throughout the novel, Gatsby and Nick explain unaccomplished dreams and the ability for that to turn into new beginnings, using the color