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Louran Younan Ms Randoff 4th hour 4/3/14

In Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby many colors are used to represent various meanings. One color that changes it meaning in the middle of the book is yellow. Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby the color yellow symbolizes both wealth and corruption as well as to develop the character Gatsby and Tom. The color yellow is seen a lot in The Great Gatsby and it affects many characters and their actions. Gold was the original color than it changed in the Gatsby house. In the beginning the color was all about being rich and having money but in the middle of the book it turns opposite and becomes very dark and it turns into corruption., "Two girls in twin yellow dresses" (girls, 44). These two girls just got out of a train and they look beautiful and the color of their dresses made them look wealthy. Myrtle wears the yellow dress, everything about her person changes into something different more like something fake. In Myrtle, the color yellow is a clear representation of dishonesty because she pretends to be something and she is really not. The effect of the color yellow has on the description of characters is to point out the dishonesty they have. Gatsbys car is the car that killed Myrtle and is described as a yellow car (Gastby,147) It was a yellow car. The reason the word yellow is repeated is that because its corruption in the actions of Daisy after

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the accident. When Myrtle was struck, instead of stopping to see if she was alive, Daisy left from the scene. There is two kind of yellow one of the very few colors that are visible in this world of ashes. The other yellow object is mentioned in the valley of ashes Small block of yellow brick (walls, 24) thats where George Wilson had the repair car shop. In same chapter when Myrtle, Tom, Nick visited a friends apartment, Fitzgerald said that the windows that the friend has were yellow. Yellow is almost everywhere in the book and it usually representing something new and different every time it appears. The orchestra was playing yellow cocktail music (Music, 40). This represents yellow as a good relaxing thing, it made yellow sounds good. That to some people maybe sounds soothing. The color Red kind of relates to the color yellow. If yellow and red could have combined they would be a good color because red is joy and love and yellow in the begging was wealthy so its a good combination. Some motifs that are repeated that represents the color yellow was toms car, it was there when it represented it was wealthy and corruption. Gatsbys yellow car is also a good example and it represents corruption because thats the car they killed myrtle in. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby has many colors but yellow was the mysterious one that always meant something different. It was the only color that changed in the middle of the book and represents something else. The examples provided will show how yellow is both wealthy and corruption, how it switched in the middle of the book and how it represent Gatsby and Tom.

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Work Cited Fitzgerald, Scott F. The Great Gatsby. New York:Scribners, Charles, 1925 Print