论了不起的盖茨比中颜色的运用理论

英美文学期末论文

论文题目：The theory of the exquisite design of color in“The great Gatsby”

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The theory of the exquisite design of color in

“The great Gatsby”

Abstract

“The great Gatsby” is regarded as the masterpiece of the famous Fitzgerald,which is regarded as “one of the greatest novels in the 20th century”. When you are reading the “The great Gatsby”, do you have noticed a disti nction of it ,the utilization of various colors,and every color in the novel has its own profound meaning.In this paper,we will appreciate four colors of “The great Gatsby” together. Key words:The great Gatsby Fitzgerald Color Metaphor

“The great Gatsby” is regarded as the masterpiece of the famous Fitzgerald,which is regarded as “one of the greatest novels in the 20th century”,and it is also the most favorite novel of Haruki Murakami ,the famous contemporary Japanese novelist. Its fancinnating plots, picturesque descriptions and profound expose, which all embody Fitzgerald’s transcendental talent, can not content the whole execellence of this great novel——the novel’s splendidness is much more than that.When you are reading the “The great Gatsby”, I do n’t know whether you have noticed a distinction of it ,the utilization of various colors, and the interleaving of colors reveals the leitmotiv of the novel, that the huge gap of the ideal and reality would break the vacuous American dream. In this paper, w e will analyze “The great Gatsby” from the point of view of colors and choose 4 commonly used colors of the it, which include green, white, yellow and blue, to understand the role of colors in this novel.

Green

Green is the color of the vegetation in the natural, which can remind people of the growth of the grass and trees, and it has the meaning of health, energy, hope and https://www.360docs.net/doc/624977644.html,ter , the growth of the vegetation is used to describe the growth of people themselves, and green started to be describe the specially youthful spirit of the youngest, however at the same time ,green also has the metaphor meaning of immatureness, naivete, and inexperience. In the novel, the main incarnate of green is the green light ,which is as a symple of the pursuit of Gatsby, and green is dominant tone of Gatsby’s whole life, which implies the immature procession of the protagonist of setting the goal,pursiting the dream and his dream’s disillusionment .

The first apparence of green is in Gatsby’s seventeen years old, and at tha t time

Gatsby is working in the fields wearing a green sweatshirt,who is energetic , vibrant as well as with a better vision for the future and convinced the motto that "pay a return".Therefore during this period green foreshadows Gatsby’s confidence for t he future life.

The other important incarnate of green is the green light in Daisy’s villa, which appeared 3 times in novel.The first is at the end of the chapter 1, when Nick arrives in West Egg merely, unfamiliar with the surroundings.One night, Nick goes out of his room, sees his neighbor gazing into the distance at the seaside,”......he streched out his arms towards the dark water in a curious ,and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involutarily I glanced seaward ——and distingguished nothing expect a single green light ,minite and far away ,that might have been the end of a dock......”, the green light is the right light in the Daisy’s villa.Here green refers to Gatsby’s pursuit and dream,to retrieve Daisy’s love, to live a luxury living. Meanwhile, green hints the dream of Gatsby is naive and unreal, and he even haven’t thought of whether Daisy treasure his love as himself, indeed in Daisy’s heart nothing is important than her splendor, which reflects the tragedy of Gatsby.

The second of appearance the green light is in the chapter 5, Gatsby met Daisy in his villa finally with the help of Nick, and after showing his wealth and achievement, Gatsby says to Daisy “If there is no fog, we can see the green light in your villa.” Here the green light disappears, which hints the failure of Gatsby in the end that al his efforts were in vain.

And the third appearance of the green light is at the end of novel, where Daisy killed Tom's mistress,and Gatsby became Daisy’s scapegoat and is murder red by Wilson.After Gatsby’s death, Nick once said “Gatsby believed in the green light ,the orgastic future that year by year reedes before us ,It eludes us then ,but that no matter—tomorow we will run faster ,stretch our arms farther...... ”.The believer of green light Gatsby dead, and the dream of Gatsby disillusioned. Nevertheless, the beginning of his dream is wrong, and here the green light is an irony of the values that “the gospel of mammon”.

White

As green is the color of Gatsby , white is the color of Daisy. In Western culture,white has the meaning of holiness, naive, fragrant and elegant.And in the novel, Fitzgerald used white to describe Daisy many times.

At the beginning of novel , the authors writes the villa of Tom and Daisy was white,what’s more ,the curtains of theirs is white as well “......A breeze blew through the room ,blew curtains in at one end and out at the other like pale flags......”.When Nick first meet Daisy , she wears a white dress talking with Jordan, and when Daisy goes to meet Gatsby at the first time, she ride the white car, wears a white dress.In addition, in the chapter 6 Nick has sighed “Daisy is a princess living in a white palace, unattainable”. On the surface, white endues holiness, naive, fragrant and elegant with Daisy,as a matter of fact, Fitzgerald intimates that Daisy is greedy, ruthless and selfish, and her emptiness, wanderer and mercilessness in the spirit level.

The white Daisy stimulates Gatsby to fighting for her , even if it will take a lifetime, at the same time ,the white Daisy brings Gatsby to death. Throughout the process of intercourse between Gatsby and Daisy, Daisy always represents the upper class in America, and Gatsby regards Daisy as the exemplification of his dream due to his love for her. When Gatsby have a lot of procession, the attitude of Daisy to Gatsby changed from contempt to attachments.However,when her husband reveals the wretched identity and status of Gatsby in a rude way, when she knows how Gatsby get his procession, and even when Gastby commits her crime of killing Mrs. Wilson and is murderred by Wilson because of her, she never expresses any understanding or sympathy for Gatsby, and she remains silent all the time ,hasn’t said any one word for Gatsby. So far the deam of Gatsby is never beautiful any more, and it becomes pallid, pitiless and powerless,in the white shadow of Daisy, Gatsby's dream is destined to be destroyed.Here white is used to irony the inconstancy among the people in that age. Yellow

Yellow is the color of autumn,which has the meaning of dreariness, miserableness, decay and death, whether in the western or the eastern country.And yellow is also the color of gold, which reflected the uproariousness and vanity of that age.

If white reflects the vacuous superficies of the age, then yellow or golden represents the money-oriented essence of it, as the same time , yellow interweave with white which describes the wishy-washy and vacant spirit in that age, which is found on the value of money worship.Just like Daisy, although she wears the dresses,drives the white car, lives in a white palace, her immanency still cannot get rid of money worship.Daisy is likened to “the golden princess” in the white palace, and Fitzgerald also writes in the novel “......the white palace shining golden lights in the sunsets...... ”. Coincidentally ,the apartment where Tom and Motel met and appointed also has a golden window.Here yellow or golden satirizes their fallen soul , addicted to material comforts, without any sense of shame.

In that era of vanity, the so-called love is actually a phantom created by money worship, and Gatsby’s Daisy is only a mammonist with a seemingly beautiful and pure semblance. But Gatsby is Dazzled by love and lost with the affection of Daisy.Gatsby is so naive that he think if he is enough rich and has enough money ,he will retrieve Daisy’s love for him, so he show Daisy his money and achievements once and once again to draw Daisy’s appreciation to approach her, meanwhile he is also trying to approach the high class of soi ety. At the party in Gatsby’s villa, the band plays the music of Golden Cocktail, the suckling pig was roasted into golden, the ladies with golden hair, the car is yellow, and Gatsby ties a golden tie, even the flowers in the Gatsby’s garden exude golden f ragrance.The author describe a golden picture of that age, and actually he wants to reflect the desolateness of the world under the control of money worship.

Yellow is a warm color ,but in the money-oriented world any warm color can make a warm world, because the relationship among people only depends on the cold

money.Without dream and pursuit ,the age and the people of it are bound to decadence,and all the phantom created by money worship will be disillusioned.In the novel yellow really leads people to death, that the yellow car of Gatsby killed Motel and finally leads Gatsby to death. At the end of the story there is still a dimly yellow light hanging on the ceiling and Gatsby goes to the swimming pool through a yellow grove fading in a slight yellow.Here yellow reveal the tragedy of the characters,and their desolate ending is also the ending of the American dream and the money worship.

However,it is worth pointing out that yellow has another figurative meaning that returning to the basics.Yellow is the color of the earth and the color of the train linking to hometown, and apart from describing the superficiality, the neon glamour and the cheap prettiness of life, it also provide another chioce to people, to be addicted to emptiness and vanity or to return to their own original nature.Here yellow is not a sharp irony but a rebirth opportunity.

Blue

The last important color of “The great Gatsby” is blue,which is the color of dream.If yellow braids a huge golden cage hanging over the world, then blue gives the world ideal and belief.Blue is the color of ocean and shy, so it has the meaning of peaceful and broad,which is in stark contrast to yellow.

Actually, in the novel there is really a lot of comparisions between yellow and blue.Wilson has the blue and deje cted eyes” ...When he saw us a damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes...” but he is trapped in ” a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land” ; “...the eye of Doctor T.J Eckleburg are blue and gigantic...” ; when they arrives at the magnificent apartment of Tom and Motel’s , Nick says that “...the late afternoon sky bloomed in the window for a moment like the blue honey of the Mediterranean—then the shrill voice of Mrs. McKee called me back into the room...”; and “...In h is blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars...”.In the novel, where there is full of gold and hullabaloo and where there is must be a little bit of blue. Fitzgerald may be attempted to use the blue to bring us some tranquility and comfort,to give us the peaceful belief.However there are too many golden cages to achieve our blue hope, and the blue brings the novel a gloomy atmosphere.

At the end of the novel, Gatsby is murderred in his swimming with his broken dream, Wilson shoots himself, and Daisy and Tom escaped into their money world, which lets Nick down and he decides to return his hometown in the west. Even when Gatsby is murderred, “the shadow of a tree fell abruptly across the d ew and ghostly birds began to sing among the blue.” On the one hand, the blue is the hope of Gatsby. On the other hand , the blue symbolises the tragedy of Gatsby that he couldn’t received a phone call from Daisy.

What’s more,in the western culture, blue is also the symbal of “blue blood”.All the shirts of Gatsby in his wardrobe are embroidered with blue letters of “Gatsby”,which excatly expresses his dream of squeezing into the upper class.And in

the chapter 7 of the novel, Gatsby drives the blue car to the town,but still drives his yellow car back to the West Egg.In that time, money is superior than anything,and the society is rigidly stratified so as that Gatsby won’t be regarded as the high class.There is no place for Gatsby in that society and he is disorientated by the confused values.The so-called high class are a group of numb, cold and selfish people.Daisy and Tom finally destroys Gatsby without any guilty and they escapes into their money world continuing their numb life. The blue eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are compared to the eyes of god, which ridicule the indifferene of world.

So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves is in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line Nick decids to come back home.The blue somke is the broken dream of Gatsby as well as the new belief of the world, and only remove the cages of the decay can the new belief get freedom, which tries to warn people giving up the wrong values and pursuit the right dream, or everything will destroy.

Conclusion

Fitzgerald painted a colorful picture with green, white,yellow and blue.Through the color we can understand the attitude and the emotion of the author in the novel, and discern the sophisticated conception and the original design of the author, and the colors help u s know about the protagonists more deeply. Fitzgerald is worthy of “the greatest writers of the 21st century”, even every plot, every discription and every color in his novel are all well-designed and chosen cautiously.As the most mignificent masterprise of Fitzgerald, The great gatsby will shining in our memory forever.