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Colors of the Book


             Scott Fitzgerald used the colors white, yellow, and green to symbolize and create different effects and to define different characteristics in the book. White symbolized cleanliness and purity, but it also showed how white could be contaminated. Yellow represented immorality and corruption. Green, the dominant color in the book, illustrated wealth and Gatsby's unachievable dream. .
             Fitzgerald connected the color white most closely with Daisy. Daisy wore white dresses, powdered her face white, and recalled her "white girlhood" (24). Even Daisy's house was furnished in white. White was used in the book to represent cleanliness, innocence, beauty, and wealth. The use of the color white enhanced Daisy's character as an "enchanted princess." When Nick first encountered Daisy, she and Jordan "were both dressed in white" (12). Fitzgerald described Daisy as having lived "high in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl" (127). Gatsby recalled his heart beating faster when he kissed "Daisy's white face" (117). On the other hand, white was also used in the book to symbolize corruption. For example, life in West Egg was described as a pitiful place where "four solemn men dressed in suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress. Her hand, which dangles over the side, sparkles cold with jewels. Gravely the men turn it at a house - the wrong house. But no one knows the woman's name, and no once cares." .
             Yellow represented the corruption and decay of both East and West Egg. The guests who attend Gatsby's parties are guilty of materialism and money is their first priority. The night Gatsby entertained members of the wealthy class, the orchestra played "yellow cocktail music" (44.) At that same party Nick met "two girls in yellow" (47). While Gatsby lied about his past to Nick, Gatsby was wearing a "caramel-colored suit.


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