Describe three symbols

Yellow/Gold:

Yellow is the meaning of jealousy and happiness. Jealousy is shown throughout book by Gatsby, Nick, Daisy, Tom, Myrtle, and George Wilson and happiness is constantly portrayed by the same characters.Gold is often used to represent wealth, high-class and expensive value. Gold can show the accomplishment of being in first place, or also  honouring and commending. Both yellow and gold are closely used throughout society.Gold is used to represent success and money while yellow is used to represent the ‘fools gold’. gold is traditional ‘old money’. Whereas yellow is just used for show and isn’t actually valuable unlike gold. “It was a big yellow car” This quote describes Gatsby’s car and the colour of it; yellow. His car is one of the many symbols that represent Gatsby wanting to get in to the high-class society but failing to do so. Yellow is not just the colour of money, but also of destruction. Yellow is the colour of the car that runs down Myrtle. The glasses of Eckleburg, looking over the wasteland of America, are yellow. This dual symbolism clearly associates money with destruction; the ash heaps are the filthy result of the decadent lifestyle led by the rich. This symbol appears throughout the text because it is constantly reminding the reader that Gatsby represent ‘fools gold’/ yellow and Daisy represents Gold.The symbol helps us to understand that Gatsby is false and his life is an illusion. Whilst Gold represents Daisy and helps us to understand that her items are real and aren’t just there for the show and to add to her wealth. Unlike Gatsby.

Green Light: 

The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock represents the “unattainable dream,” the “dream that must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.” Green is a colour that represents hope, dreams, it also represents a new life and what could happen in the future. “He stretched out his arms… I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing except a single green light,” In this quote Gatsby represents a hopeful seeker, reaching out for his dreams which he can not get; Daisy. The green light appears in chapters 1,5 and 9. It appears in these chapters to signify that Gatsby’s dream of being with Daisy is slowly fading away more and more. Until it is completely covered by mist.”If it wasn’t for the mist we could see your home across the bay,” This quote tells the reader that the hope for getting Daisy back is gone, although Gatsby does not yet know this. The symbols help us to understand Gatsby. This is because the green light shows how hopeful Gatsby is. It shows that Gatsby is a dreamer, he sees things but can’t grasp them. He can’t grasp things such as Daisy or her love, the ‘American Dream’ he has chased since he was 17 or the wealth and the social status he wants.  The green light represents illusion because Gatsby is so caught up in his fake life, that he keeps dreaming and he thinks that everything is so close and that everything that he wants is achievable when in reality its far away. His dreams and goals will just stay a dream because it is not possible to rewind or relive the past, it is impossible for Gatsby to live in East Egg with the ‘old money’, because he wasn’t born into that social class and that will always stay the same. 

Flowers: 

In the Great Gatsby flowers are used to materialise the rich and reference hope.”he broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded flavours and crushed flowers” this quote means that Gatsby’s dream are ‘crushed’ and he is just walking past them not realising that they are no longer achievable. Flowers are all through out the novel, such as Daisy ,Caraway, and Myrtle are all flowers. This symbol tends to seem during or after major relationship events. The flowers seem to signify that either there is still hope and love or that both of those things are no longer in the relationship. Flowers represent different things for the characters, such as: to Nick flowers represent that he wants status and love. For Tom, he tends to ‘collect’ them: Daisy and Myrtle. This symbol helped me realise that Tom doesn’t appreciate his love interests, yet he likes to show of that he is married to Daisy. Since Daisy is a worthy price, almost like a trophy. This symbol can be related to illusion because flowers are used to represent love and hope but throughout the novel love is constantly portrayed by Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan, Myrtle and Nick. Flowers also portray hope because when Daisy and Gatsby first meet in a room full of flowers, it is like they still have hope yet it is the first time they see each other since Daisy got married to Tom. So there is actually no hope for Daisy and Gatsby to fall in love again just like they were five years ago.

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