Some important symbols in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby include the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg and the Valley of Ashes located between West Egg and New York City. The Eyes of Dr. Eckleburg – The eyes of Dr. Eckelburg cast an ominous shadow over the goings-on in the novel.
Why Did Gatsby And Tom Switch Cars
The symbolism behind the eyes, located on a billboard overlooking the Valley of Ashes, is open to interpretation. George Wilson likens them to the eyes of God. The location of the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg looking down on everything that takes place in the Valley of Ashes may represent God looking down on a morally bankrupt wasteland and doing nothing about it. His empty face may represent the that God no longer lived, a symbol of the modernists’ distrust of political, religious, and social institutions.
The Valley of Ashes – The Valley of Ashes, located between West Egg and New York city represents the moral decay associated with the uninhibited desire for wealth. It symbolizes societal decay and the plight of the poor, victims of greed and corruption. The valley can also be linked to WWI battlefields, where existed a no man’s land–full of barbed wire, shrapnel, unexploded mines, and dead bodies–between opposing trenches. World War I influenced the negativity of modernist writers.Heat, Automobiles & Eggs. Heat – The heat becomes oppressive during the climactic scene in the novel. Tom, Daisy, Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby head to the city as tension increases.
Nick describes the day as “broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest of the summer” (102). Daisy complains, “It’s so hot, and everything’s so confused” (106). Linking the oppressive heat with the oppressive situation.
It’s possible, as well, that the heat is, in some way, symbolic of hell and damnation. It is in chapter 7 that Gatsby’s dream is crushed and Myrtle Wilson’s infidelity is discovered. Automobiles – Cars have been regarded as status symbols since Henry Ford rolled out the first Model T in the early 20th century. The automobiles driven by Gatsby and Tom Buchanan symbolize their attributes as well: Gatsby’s car is gaudy and contains all the latest gadgets.
Tom refers to it as a “circus wagon” (108). Tom drives a coupe, a high-end, traditional, elegant auto. In addition to the two men, automobiles symbolize recklessness as evidenced by Gatsby’s recklessness with money and the moral recklessness of Daisy as she barrels into Myrtle Wilson, killing her.Color SymbolismThe colors used in The Great Gatsby includes white, grey, yellow, red, and green. Green – Don’t forget that green is the color of money, that Gatsby states that Daisy’s “voice is full of money” (107), a green light shines at the end of Daisy’s dock, and that Jay Gatsby desires wealth as a means to get Daisy. The green light is also associated with the American Dream, something Gatsby cannot achieve. Grey – Everything in the Valley of Ashes is colored with grey dust.
It represents lifelessness and hopelessness. White – White normally symbolizes purity. In The Great Gatsby, it represents false purity. Jordan and Daisy, not exactly moral pillars, often wear white.
Gatsby wears white when meeting Daisy for the first time in five years to give the impression that he has been pure and good, doubtful considering his life of organized crime and bootlegging. Yellow/Gold – Yellow represents corruptness.
Gatsby’s car is yellow, a product of his corrupt dealings, as are the spectacles of Dr. It’s probably not a coincidence that the novel’s most impure character is named after a yellow flower. Gold has earned its place among the all time symbols of corruption and greed, although most wouldn’t mind having more of it. Blue – Blue represents illusions.
The first suit Gatsby wears is blue. His gardens are blue. He is separated from Daisy by blue and even his chauffeur wears blue. The eyes of Dr.
Eckelburg are also blue, Fitzgerald’s to the illusion that there was an almighty being watching over everyone, a belief widely attacked by modernist writers. Follow the link for more novel study guides.SourcesFitzgerald, F. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1953.Lorcher, Trenton.
Several Readings and Multiple Teachings of The Great Gatsby from 1998 – Present.Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. This post is part of the series: The Great Gatsby Study Guide.
In a scene from the 2013 film, Gatsby drives Daisy in Tom’s blue car (a 1933 Auburn) while Tom drives Gatsby’s automobile (a 1932 Duesenberg) with Nick and Jordan as his passengers. Obviously, these 1930s vehicles are not right for the story, which was set in 1922. By the way, the Auburn shown here is authentic, while the Duesenberg is a replica.Cars were an important part of the Jazz Age and of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald mentions only two cars by make in The Great Gatsby— Nick Carraway’s Dodge and Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce. The rest are left to the reader’s imagination.Jay Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce plays a crucial role in the story and is described as having “a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns.” Jay Gatsby embodied conspicuous consumption, and a Rolls with flamboyant coachwork in a bright color suited him. The 1928 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Ascot dual-cowl phaeton used in the 1974 production of The Great Gatsby is the perfect embodiment of the Gatsby car—except that it’s too new.
The novel was published in 1925 and was set in 1922. Imagine this 1922 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost painted yellow.Cars of “The Great Gatsby”.
We can speculate that Daisy drove this 1917 Jordan roadster. (Or maybe this guy spent his time driving Miss Daisy? Wait—wrong movie!)Tom Buchanan’s car is mentioned as a blue coupe. Tom was from old money and had no reason to impress anyone. A Marmon 34 would have been a proper car for Tom. Marmon was an expensive car that combined sport and luxury.
Yet the Marmon styling was in quiet good taste. Fitzgerald’s first car was a used Marmon, and even though it was troublesome (probably because of abuse from both Scott and his wife Zelda), Fitzgerald seems to have had fond memories of the car. Another choice for Tom would have been a Pierce-Arrow. The Pierce was built to the highest standards and had understated styling. In the brash ’20s, conservative Pierce found itself out of step with the times, just as Tom Buchanan was at odds with Jazz Age society.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald creates symbolism through the mention of cars. One thing that cars symbolise in the novel is the conspicuous consumption. For example, Gatsby’s car is the epitome of excess and showiness; it is described by Nick as ‘Gorgeous’ with ‘a rich cream colour, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool boxes and terraces with a labyrinth of wind shields that mirrored a dozen suns.’ This rich and complex description from the narrator depicts the car to be merely a show, another glamourous surface for Gatsby. This links to the topic of commercialism, and how in the novel, appearance and wealth are the superior aspects of a person.Furthermore, the ‘Labyrinth of wind shields that mirrored a dozen suns’ could represent the shedding of one’s personality; just as the wind shields conceal the driver within the cars extravagance, Gatsby uses his parties and fabulous wealth to distract from his ‘roughneck’ personality. Moreover, the excessive details of the ‘hat boxes and supper boxes and tool boxes’ suggest the showiness and tackiness of the car and of Gatsby and how his tacky ‘new money’ will be excluded from Tom and Daisy’s ‘old money’. Additionally, the worlds ‘swollen’ and ‘monstrous’ make the reader picture the car to be a repulsive, distorted vehicle, attempting to make itself larger and flashier than it is, similar to the way that Gatsby shows off his material possessions and wealth.
Moreover, Tom Buchanan describes Gatsby’s car as a ‘circus wagon’, which implies that Gatsby’s car is merely to entertain, for showiness. It also reinforces the fact that Gatsby’s ‘new money’ will always be inferior to the Buchanan’s ‘old money’.Another important car in The Great Gatsby is the car belonging to the drunk man at Gatsby’s party. He driver, in his drunken state, runs his car off the road and breaks the wheel. Php manager for iis.
After the incident, the drunk party-goer lacks the ability to realise what happened. This represents the careless nature of the rich society in the 1920s and their ignorance. The notion that money, possessions and social relationships are things to be used and discarded; this event also overshadows the dark scenes that are to come later in the book.Another crucial event in The Great Gatsby is the death of Myrtle Wilson, in which Daisy, who was in the yellow car with Gatsby, hit and runs her.
Myrtle recognised the car in which Tom was earlier in the day and ran out into the road, only to be killed. This, once again, symbolises the moral and carelessness of daisy.
Also, the fact that Myrtle recognises the yellow car, not the driver, represents again how in that society appearance and the surface was everything - Just like Gatsby disguises his ‘roughneck’ interior, his involvement win nefarious affairs, and his life as James Gatz under his elaborate parties and his magnificent house which attracts Daisy, the yellow car, which attracts Myrtle, hides Daisy and Gatsby beneath it.