What Does The Black Symbolize In The Great Gatsby

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Jay Gatsby is a man of many stories. He is believed to have been German spy, an Oxford graduate, and someone even claimed Gatsby once killed a man. Gatsby’s life is full of color and throughout the novel he is commonly associated with black for his darker side, gold for his wealthier side, and white for his nice side. Black is one of the colors picked because of its high symbolism and deep meaning of dread and death. Gold was quite obvious because of Gatsby’s great wealth that he managed to acquire over the years. Finally white was chosen because of Gatsby’s appearance of seeming like the good guy all of the time. Black is associated with Gatsby because of its tendency to represent confusion, mistrust, mourning and death. At one point Tom…show more content…
As one finds out, Jay Gatsby used to be James Gatz, a shell diver. He was very poor until he met a ship captain and befriended him. This new friend, Dan Cody, took him aboard his ship after buying him six pairs of white trousers so that he can become his new employee (Fitzgerald 98). White also describes the houses and how they look so new. Nick adds parts about how the windows are shining gold while the houses are bright white. The white windows show how the houses are new and expensive (Fitzgerald 5). White also means rebirth, so when Gatsby comes back from being poor to being very rich he starts to wear white a lot more often. While driving through the city, Gatsby manages to get pulled over and instead of accepting the ticket normally, he pulls out a white card to show the officer. After seeing this card, the officer apologizes and leaves. This sort of power seemed a little fishy at first, but later on one may find that Gatsby had made some pretty lucrative deals which had helped him in his strive to get more money. White also means innocent. For example, Gatsby is so scared of actually meeting Daisy that he wears a white shirt to symbolize his
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