Moges 1
Aresima Moges
Miss Hopkins
English 3 / Period 3
25 September 2018
Color Symbolism Analysis for The Great Gatsby
When someone hears the color white, it connotes feelings of purity and innocence. Author
F. Scott Fitzgerald, beautifully intertwines these ideas in his novel The Great Gatsby , through
characters like Daisy Buchanan. When the readers first meet Daisy, Nick Carraway describes
Daisy and her friend as, “...wearing white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they
had been just blown back in after a short flight around the house” (Fitzgerald 8). To illustrate to the
audience how pure and angelic the rest of the characters view her, Nick paints a descriptive picture
of Daisy utilizing the color white. Giving her character a name of a white delicate flower was no
accident on the author’s part either. Fitzgerald purposefully names her Daisy so the reader’s first
impression of her is that she is a flawless; but also to make the readers understand Gatsby’s
infatuation with Daisy and how he also views her; a pure beauty.
Most scenes that happen to speak to Daisy’s background, also mention the color white. For
instance, when Daisy reminisces about her childhood she states, “Our white girlhood was passed
together there...our beautiful--” (19). Even before marriage Daisy possessed this heavenly aura that
always charms the people around her. She lives surrounded by the color white. To emphasize this,
Fitzgerald even has Daisy’s house as, “gleaming white” (8). Although she seems like an innocent
and pure soul, ...
