Daisy Buchanan:
The Great Gatsby, on its surface, is about the foiled love between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. However the hollowness of the upper class in the 1920’s is revealed through the Buchanan's-specifically Daisy. The sociology of wealth between West Egg (which represents the newly rich) and East Egg (old aristocracy) differs. Fitzgerald reveals that the newly rich are vulgar and unethical through exposing the source of Jay Gatsby’s and Meyer Wolfsheim’s wealth. The old aristocracy, in contrast, is more elegant however lack in the good intentions that people such as Jay Gatsby had. While Gatsby’s wealth derives from clearly questionable sources, he has a sincere heart whereas the the Buchanan’s earned honest money yet lacked heart. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (pg 170).
This hollowness is seen in the character of Daisy Buchanan. When one thinks of the color gold, one typically associates it with richness, prosperity, and success. However yellow, the inner color of a Daisy, is different. It’s a fake gold, it’s a fake richness that is show rather than true substance. The richness is only a cover; it is a short sensation. Thus Daisy is not white and pure like she seems at first. White represents purity, but it is a false purity. In the story the color white is used as a facade. "They [Jordan and Daisy] were both in white, and their dresses rippling and fluttering..." (pg 8) .Daisy is nearly always seen wearing white which makes her seem innocent. Daisy is yellow- a dirtied white that is a result of the decadent lifestyle of the roaring twenties.
Then there’s the color blue. In The Great Gatsby it is the color of illusions. Gatsby has a blue aura. His gardens are blue, his home is blue, and the lake separating him and Daisy is even described as a “blue lawn”. Blue is the color of illusions and alternatives to reality the characters of the novel live in. Daisy’s eyes in the portrait are green, a combination of yellow and blue. At her core, she is a product of a corrupted dream.
The color green is also the color of the light visible at the end of Daisy’s dock. It represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. This green light also connects to the general idea of the decline of the American dream in the 1920s. The green light of the “orgastic future” Nick talks about is hope. However it’s not always a good one. The blue of dreams and aspirations is mixed with the yellow of corruption creates green. It creates the color green, the pursuit of prosperity and dreams that will never come to be.
In the novel just as Americans have given American meaning through their aspirations, Gatsby instills Daisy with an illusion of perfection that she is fully undeserving of. Just like Gatsby’s dream is ruined with the yellow of Daisy, the American dream was ruined by the unworthiness of it’s object. Therefore Daisy has a white “pure” facade, but at her core she is yellowed-corrupted and careless. She fully believes in her illusions, however when combined with her corrupted self, she only sees in green- fixed on pursuing a dream that can never come true.
The Great Gatsby, on its surface, is about the foiled love between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. However the hollowness of the upper class in the 1920’s is revealed through the Buchanan's-specifically Daisy. The sociology of wealth between West Egg (which represents the newly rich) and East Egg (old aristocracy) differs. Fitzgerald reveals that the newly rich are vulgar and unethical through exposing the source of Jay Gatsby’s and Meyer Wolfsheim’s wealth. The old aristocracy, in contrast, is more elegant however lack in the good intentions that people such as Jay Gatsby had. While Gatsby’s wealth derives from clearly questionable sources, he has a sincere heart whereas the the Buchanan’s earned honest money yet lacked heart. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (pg 170).
This hollowness is seen in the character of Daisy Buchanan. When one thinks of the color gold, one typically associates it with richness, prosperity, and success. However yellow, the inner color of a Daisy, is different. It’s a fake gold, it’s a fake richness that is show rather than true substance. The richness is only a cover; it is a short sensation. Thus Daisy is not white and pure like she seems at first. White represents purity, but it is a false purity. In the story the color white is used as a facade. "They [Jordan and Daisy] were both in white, and their dresses rippling and fluttering..." (pg 8) .Daisy is nearly always seen wearing white which makes her seem innocent. Daisy is yellow- a dirtied white that is a result of the decadent lifestyle of the roaring twenties.
Then there’s the color blue. In The Great Gatsby it is the color of illusions. Gatsby has a blue aura. His gardens are blue, his home is blue, and the lake separating him and Daisy is even described as a “blue lawn”. Blue is the color of illusions and alternatives to reality the characters of the novel live in. Daisy’s eyes in the portrait are green, a combination of yellow and blue. At her core, she is a product of a corrupted dream.
The color green is also the color of the light visible at the end of Daisy’s dock. It represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. This green light also connects to the general idea of the decline of the American dream in the 1920s. The green light of the “orgastic future” Nick talks about is hope. However it’s not always a good one. The blue of dreams and aspirations is mixed with the yellow of corruption creates green. It creates the color green, the pursuit of prosperity and dreams that will never come to be.
In the novel just as Americans have given American meaning through their aspirations, Gatsby instills Daisy with an illusion of perfection that she is fully undeserving of. Just like Gatsby’s dream is ruined with the yellow of Daisy, the American dream was ruined by the unworthiness of it’s object. Therefore Daisy has a white “pure” facade, but at her core she is yellowed-corrupted and careless. She fully believes in her illusions, however when combined with her corrupted self, she only sees in green- fixed on pursuing a dream that can never come true.
Jordan Baker:
Similar to Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker also hides behind the white facade. However, unlike Daisy, she acts as though if she is superior to those around her. “She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in” (pg 13). Apathetic about most things, she uses her image to imply she is innocent like Daisy. However, “Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep the cool insolent smile turned towards the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard jaunty body” (Pg. 63). She embodies the color yellow like Daisy- she is the same fake gold but she is also hard and cynical. She cheats at golf and at life. Her “slender golden arms” are anything but golden.
In addition to being a fake gold, she is also gray. Gray is used in the novel for neutral, dull, and otherwise unimportant things in the book (“grey little villages in France” (pg 48). Not only is her attitude gray, but she is a product of the gray barren wasteland that is immoral dumping ground of industrial waste and burned dreams. Her ideals, like many of the modern women of the era were gray. The 1920s was an era of decayed social and moral values as seen in the cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure that Jordan Baker was guilty of. Jordan Baker was a part of the opulent, decadent partying and lifestyle that resulted in the corruption of the American dream. Therefore “golden girl” Jordan is no more gold than she is white. Instead she is yellow and gray, corrupted and cynical.
Similar to Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker also hides behind the white facade. However, unlike Daisy, she acts as though if she is superior to those around her. “She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in” (pg 13). Apathetic about most things, she uses her image to imply she is innocent like Daisy. However, “Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasn’t able to endure being at a disadvantage, and given this unwillingness I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep the cool insolent smile turned towards the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard jaunty body” (Pg. 63). She embodies the color yellow like Daisy- she is the same fake gold but she is also hard and cynical. She cheats at golf and at life. Her “slender golden arms” are anything but golden.
In addition to being a fake gold, she is also gray. Gray is used in the novel for neutral, dull, and otherwise unimportant things in the book (“grey little villages in France” (pg 48). Not only is her attitude gray, but she is a product of the gray barren wasteland that is immoral dumping ground of industrial waste and burned dreams. Her ideals, like many of the modern women of the era were gray. The 1920s was an era of decayed social and moral values as seen in the cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure that Jordan Baker was guilty of. Jordan Baker was a part of the opulent, decadent partying and lifestyle that resulted in the corruption of the American dream. Therefore “golden girl” Jordan is no more gold than she is white. Instead she is yellow and gray, corrupted and cynical.
Myrtle Wilson:
Myrtle possess a strong vitality and a constant, desperate urge to improve her situation. Stuck with her husband George Wilson in the valley of ashes. The valley of ashes is “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.” (pg 22). The Wilsons appear in gray and the only way for Myrtle Wilson to escape the dark, lifeless picture of misery and poverty is to be Tom Buchanan.
She constantly looks down at others, but she is always looking up. The gray valley is the symbol of the moral decay and she always looks up out of it with a deeply unrealistic illusion of escaping it. Therefore, like Gatsby, her vision is clouded blue. The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg peer over the valley of ashes. Fitzgerald suggests that the eyes only have meaning because the characters instill them with meaning and make them significant. The blue eyes of Eckleburg represent the non-existent dream of God, peering over the moral wasteland. The same eyes peer over Myrtle, judging her for her adherence to her illusion. Therefore Myrtle is blue and gray. She is stuck in a gray, immoral, barren dumping ground but always looks out with vision clouded in blue illusions. She is, as Daisy might say, a "beautiful little fool".
Erica Jurado
Myrtle possess a strong vitality and a constant, desperate urge to improve her situation. Stuck with her husband George Wilson in the valley of ashes. The valley of ashes is “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.” (pg 22). The Wilsons appear in gray and the only way for Myrtle Wilson to escape the dark, lifeless picture of misery and poverty is to be Tom Buchanan.
She constantly looks down at others, but she is always looking up. The gray valley is the symbol of the moral decay and she always looks up out of it with a deeply unrealistic illusion of escaping it. Therefore, like Gatsby, her vision is clouded blue. The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg peer over the valley of ashes. Fitzgerald suggests that the eyes only have meaning because the characters instill them with meaning and make them significant. The blue eyes of Eckleburg represent the non-existent dream of God, peering over the moral wasteland. The same eyes peer over Myrtle, judging her for her adherence to her illusion. Therefore Myrtle is blue and gray. She is stuck in a gray, immoral, barren dumping ground but always looks out with vision clouded in blue illusions. She is, as Daisy might say, a "beautiful little fool".
Erica Jurado