Daisy Buchanan- White or Yellow?

           The colour white is used in the novel to portray Daisy’s innocence, “High in a white palace the king’s daughter,” (p.115) ... she dressed in white and had a little white roadster... (p.73).” But is Daisy truly innocent? Could her name be Daisy for a reason? Lets refer back to my yellow blog post. In this book yellow represents despair, death, corruption and amorality. The colour of a daisy flower has white petals with a yellow centre. Daisy appears innocent and pure on the outside but in reality she is corrupted on the inside. Could her petals have fallen off over the years or were they always there to cover up her true nature?

           Daisy is a very likable character at the beginning of the novel, as one can sympathize with her over Tom’s mistress. However, as the novel goes on Daisy’s sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, and inability to make difficult choices become apparent, and the reader loses their view that Daisy is perfect. Coming from a prominent family in Louisville, Daisy has always known what it feels like to be wealthy. It can be argued that because of this she and Tom are the same. They were both set in their old money ways and her voice is even characterized as “... full of ,money” (p.115). Daisy and Tom can both be characterized as cruel and malicious but are they really? It can be argued that their money has just, in fact made them careless people. “They were carless people, Tom and Daisy-they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness...” (p.170). They had known nothing but carless lifestyles their whole wealthy lives, and Daisy understood that money equals power. They put their own needs first, and do not care much about Myrtle, Gatsby, their daughter, or even each other. 
           One of the most interesting quotes from Diasy is this: “I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” Through this quote she shows that she is not as oblivious as she would seem. She shows her docility and willingness to conform to the social environment that intelligence is not valued in women. She is also emphasizing her feelings on her marriage. If a women is a fool she would not realize how cruel society really is. If Daisy was more of a fool than perhaps she would have thought love was enough and waited for Gatsby to return from the war. However, she saw that money makes the world go round and even though she did not find true love in Tom, she found power and wealth, two of the most important things in class and society.

The Enchanted Green Light

           The colour green is also a major colour symbol associated within the Great Gatsby as I mentioned in my previous blog. The Green Light Blog is the name of my blog for a reason, as it represents the immense hope felt by Gatsby that motivated him and drove his ambition for wealth. It represents his hope of one day restoring the relationship with Daisy as he stares at this green light at the end of her dock every night. Nick calls this light an “enchanted object” which is true because that is what symbols are in literature and in real life. At the beginning of the novel when Nick first catches sight of Gatsby he is reaching out to the green light but as Nick observes it is “minute and far away.” This alludes that it is almost impossible to reach which is true up until a certain point. After the successful reunion of Daisy and Gatsby in chapter five this enchanted object is no longer unreachable and loses its importance in Gatsby’s life. "Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever....Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one" (p.90). The importance of this symbol to Gatsby is made clear through Nick’s comparison of the light to how America must have looked to the early settlers. “For a transitory, enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent,compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder” (p.171). Gatsby’s wonder of this light that became an enchanted symbol to him shows his hope, but this hope can not always be a reality.

Gold and Yellow- Wealth or Decay?

           The colours yellow and gold are often used to describe wealth and beauty. Take for example the golden  golden youth and golden opportunities. Jordan Baker who is the golden girl of golf can be associated with this colour, “with Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine” (p. 44). This colour is used in the book with to describe wealth but is also used as the colour of death. Fitzgerald uses yellow to decouple the ideas of wealth and greatness and instead couples this wealth with corruption, amorality and death. The use of yellow to represent wealth can be associated with the old gold that used to be the form of money, instead of the green money found in America today. This can be related to the green light Gatsby reaches out to so many a night. It can be speculated that Gatsby was not only reaching out to Daisy but out to his hopes of obtaining enough money to make Daisy happy. However, in reaching out to this green light he is reaching out to the wrong colour, which is his new money. Daisy comes from old money and gold is the light, or money she requires. This old money need can then be related back to yellow as a symbol of wealth but also one of despair in this novel.

  This colour is used many times throughout the book and often symbolizes death and foreshadows bad things to come. For one thing, Gatsby’s car is yellow and it was the death machine that ended up killing Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle Wilson’s house is also yellow the place where this horrible event took place. Nick even described the lights in the garage after Myrtle’s death to be yellow, “... the garage, which was lit only by a yellow light in a swinging metal basket overhead” (p.132). The billboard eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg, another major symbol in this novel can also be related back to this colour. The eyes of Dr. T.J Eckleburg that stare over vast amounts of death and decay in the novel are ringed in a pair of enormous yellow glasses, “They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles...” (p.26). In chapter five of the book when Daisy and Gatsby first meet after many years, Gatsby is wearing a gold tie, the buttons on Daisy’s dress are gold and Nick describes the flowers as smelling like a pale gold, “pale gold odour of the kiss-me-at-the-gate” (p.88). Throughout this reunion Fitzgerald constantly refers back to the colour yellow which in a way can foreshadow the disparity and hopelessness of Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship.