The Great Gatsby is based on a man named Jay Gatsby and his idealistic infatuation to a girl named Daisy that he met while he was young. Gatsby was not of a wealthy family and therefore Daisy would not marry him. Gatsby devoted his life to getting what he needed to win Daisy. After the war Gatsby became a bootlegger to attain what he needed to win Daisy. In the Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses various colors, objects, and gestures as symbols to portray the lack of moral and spiritual values of people and the different aspects of society in the 1920s.
The colors which are spread throughout the novel are green, white, gold, and others. F. Scott Fitzgerald provides a social commentary on the 1920s in this novel. The Great Gatsby is an important American novel and not just a mere historical document depicting life in the 1920s. Like other writers of the 20s Fitzgerald was fascinated by the spectacle of what had become of the American Dream and how it had become corrupted by greed and materialistic possessions. At the end of Chapter One, Nick catches Gatsby stretching his arms out towards a green light.
At the time it is not revealed to us that this is the light at the end of Daisys dock. -he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward–and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (Fitzgerald 26) Throughout the novel Fitzgerald emphasizes the color green as a promise of hope. Through Gatsby this promise is corrupted by the means that he tries to attain it.
By ttaining material wealth to win Daisy, Gatsby also shows the corruption of the American Dream. In the beginning of Chapter Two, Fitzgerald describes the huge billboard that watches over the Valley of Ashes. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. (Fitzgerald 27) The gold or yellow rimmed glasses represent the materialistic desire for money, and superficial wealth. The empty face represents the hollowness of people and their materialistic values.
The billboard of Eckleburg also represents another symbol in the novel. It stands for a empty and dead god. In Fitzgeralds book, there is a new, but false god, who, the people (in the person of Wilson) believe, sees everything. In America in the 1920s the new god was commercialism or materialism. (Audhuy 109) The billboard represents the ignored conscience of the idealistic people. Although it is there and sees everything the characters dont pay attention to it. At the beginning of the novel and through the beginning chapters Gatsby is staging parties at his house during the summer nights.
Gatsby stages these parties in hopes that Daisy will show up at one. The novel is concerned with Gatsbys reasons for appearing out of the blue and becoming host to half the rich moths of New York. He is, it turns out, in love with Daisy. The whole elaborate decor has been constructed for the sole purpose of staging a dramatic reunion with her. A reunion which will impress her with Gatsbys greatness and eradicate the five years of married life which she has drifted through since seeing him last. (Dyson 1401) Through these acts Gatsby shows us how devoted he is to winning Daisy.
He has been working and planing his whole life for a chance capture Daisys heart and live his pre-planned fairy tale with her. Owl Eyes shows us the lack of responsibility in The Great Gatsby . The character of Owl Eyes shows that there has been a vale over the eyes of the people of the time. Although he is the only one that discovers that Gatsbys books are real he is morally blind. Owl-Eyes, a man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles is blind, but materialistically perceptive. Need we point out that the owl is the bird of wisdom, etc.
When he appears, the emphasis is put on seeing, through distortion and confusion, and on his unusual quality of wonder. (Audhuy 117) In an incident in Chapter Three the character Owl Eyes shows the reader the lack of responsibility and understanding of the people of the time. Owl Eyes is in his car and his driver severs the wheel from the car by driving the car into a ditch. Owl Eyes and the driver not understanding how this happened. He stares up into the sky as if the wheel fell from it. -and one guest manages to wreck his car in a ditch.
The main point of the accident is the sheer carelessness and bizarre lack of understanding shown by the driver and the other guests, symbolic of their profound moral carelessness and opacity. Owl Eyes and his advisers cannot understand that the wheel is broken off from the car and therefore it cannot be driven, in the same way that they have no real understanding that acts have consequences for which one has to be morally responsible. (Northman 24) This accident also has another meaning. It foreshadows Myrtles and Gatsbys death. The automobile, a symbol of wealth, serves as an instrument of death and destruction.
This minor accident is also of special importance because it is related to the argument about carelessness between Nick and Jordan later in the chapter and because it foreshadows the accident that kills Myrtle. It is fitting that the automobile, the symbol of material wealth in America, should be the instrument that ultimately leads to Gatsbys death. (Northman 24) The moral values of the time, as Fitzgerald shows us, is greatly declined in the novel. Gatsby, although he treats Nick as a good friend, is only concerned with one thing. He wants something from Nick.
And what does Gatsby want of Carraway? He wants to know, continued Jordan, if youll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over. He wants Carraway, to put this bluntly, to help him capture a friends wife- (Dyson 1401) The story of Jay Gatsby is deep with meaning and with many different interpretations. In The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald shows us how society acted during the roaring 20s. He provides us with views into worlds of love, money, power, and the moral blindness of the time by using symbols with everyday objects and occurrences.
