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Symbolism of Colors in The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a story about love and idealism. Colors are used often as symbols, and the colors create a weird atmosphere in different scenes of the book. The green light represents Gatsby’s hope to Daisy because Gatsby never thought of reality, he always thinks about his future dreams with Daisy. The narrator Nick Carraway uses the imagery of colors in the book. White is a clean and pure color, but the author shows how it can be tainted as well. The color yellow illustrates money and Daisy's. Blue is the color of reality. Lastly, green, the most dominant color in the book, symbolizes wealth and of Gatsby and his American dream. Dr. T. J. E. Eckleburg’s blue eyes are the symbol of the god that is watching over them. "And I said God knows what you've been doing, everything you've been doing. You may fool me but you can't fool God!", "God sees everything, repeated Wilson (p.167)." Folks in the town think that god is watching over them. Narrator incorporates the eyes into his novel to represent a pair of all looking, knowing and judging eyes, which are meant to intimidate. George Wilson also believes that the eyes are the eyes of God. But actually it represents a God who no longer sees or cares because it has nothing to do with people, it is just a belief. "You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock. (98)" Gatsby says to Daisy. Gatsby has spent his whole life longing for something better like money, success, acceptance and Daisy. Gatsby's concentration on the green light stands for all of Gatsby's longings and wants. His determination for succeeds all to be with Daisy after years. He then vanishes just as we are learning about him from a distance, at the end of the book. Green is Gatsby's American dream, which symbolizes hope, freedom and happiness for him, but it becomes his unattainable dream later on. Gatsby's cream colored car represents his richness and wealth. "I'd seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and toolboxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a hundred suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green conservatory we started to town (69)." His superiority from other people at that time by having a nice looking car when most of the people don’t have car. It's all probably because of Daisy's "Rich girls don’t marry poor boys" quote. But afterwards the color of the car changes into yellow, which represents money and corruption, a part of American dream. Great Gatsby is a symbol of an American experience of American dream. "It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther.... (189)". At the end he connects the green light to all people. He still believes in green light because it became a symbol of his love to Daisy. In the book even though there are many colors used, the most important color is green; it is the symbol of hope and the American dream Gatsby hopes to attain with money. Also the green light becomes nothing other than a bulb burning at the end of Daisy's dock.
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