Symbolism in The Great Gatsby
The Other Symbolism Page...
---Cars:
"It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that mirrored a hundred suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green conservatory we started to town." (68)
During a time when cars were just beginning to become common, Gatsby's car is used as a symbol of the crass materialism of the 1920s. Factory-made cars were normally black, so Gatsby's specially-made car displays his wealth and delight in material possessions.
Also used in The Great Gatsby is the bad driving motif. Jordan refers to herself as a careless driver, but says she'll be all right, so long as she does not meet anyone as careless as herself; and there is an incident of bad driving after one of Gatsby's party.
Links:
Cars in The Great Gatsby
---Valley of Ashes:
"This is a valley of ashes--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"(27).
The image of a barren wasteland of ashes provides a stark contrast to the lavish parties of Jay Gatsby. The Valley of Ashes symbolizes the moral decay that Fitzgerald saw behind the facade of wealth and happiness. It is in this dump that Mr. Tom Buchanan's mistress lived. It is fitting, then, that the valley is chosen as a setting for such events as Nick's meeting with Myrtle and Myrtle's murder by Daisy.
The Valley of Ashes was based on the Corona dump in Queens. It was a swamp used as a landfill for ashes, manure, and other refuse.
Links:
Religion in The Great Gatsby
---Dr. T. J. Eckleburg's Eyes:
"The eyes of Doctor T J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic...they look out of no face, but instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles" (27)
In the vast wasteland of the Valley of Ashes stands a solitary landmark: a billboard with an advertisement for an optometrist. Fitzgerald chose these huge, flat, empty eyes to symbolize a dead God staring blindly out at the moral decay of humanity and the meaningless garbage that our lives have become. The fact that Fitzgerald chose to represent God by a lifeless pair of eyes shows his belief that we no longer have a belief in God--that He is lifeless.
Links:
Religion in The Great Gatsby
---Flowers:
"You remind me of a--of a rose, an absolute rose." (19)
"Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman..." (111)
"At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete." (117)
Flowers have long been symbols of grace, beauty, and love, so what more fitting name could there have been for the person whom Gatsby pines after than Daisy?
Unfortunately, Gatsby's belief in her perfection is based more on the projection of his fantasies of her than on her actual character. Fitzgerald illustrates this with the colors of a daisy: white, for purity, is on the outside; but yellow, for corruption and money, is at the core.
Other flowers, like the orchid and the rose, symbolize refinement and love, respectively.
Links:
Flower imagery in The Great Gatsby
Color symbolism in The Great Gatsby
--Another Links--
An essay on heat in The Great Gatsby by Wayne Crawford
Page last updated: 4/28/99.
Curator: Eric Hughes