Color and Cosmos in "The Great Gatsby"
Author(s): A. E. Elmore
Source: The Sewanee Review, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Summer, 1970), pp. 427-443
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27541823 .
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COLOR AND COSMOS
IN THE GREAT
GATSBY
By A.
GREAT
CfHE
by was
is constantly hailed as a technical
often
thereby
Dan
Piper
cally," Henry
the most
carefully
all Fitzgerald's
was
the Night
ELMORE
GATSBY
but
success,
E.
planned
. . ." Yet
novels.
condemned.
subtly
uThe
has written,
and most flawlessly
argues
Piper
an advance
the
upon
"artistically"
"Techni
Gats
Great
executed
of
that Tender
Is
earlier
novel.
Similarly Arthur Mizener praises Fitzgerald for committing him
self in Gatsby to a "workable form which he never betrayed",
reserves
while
he
most
serious
notion
much
that Gatsby,
in seriousness
for all
and
finest
higher
praise?"Fitzgerald's
Is the Night.
Tender
novel"?for
its technical
of meaning
range
virtues,
is partly
the
Perhaps
is somehow
lacking
to Fitz
attributable
gerald himself, who in defending Tender Is the Night
a "philosophical"
or "psychological" novel having
canons
a "dramatic"
from
novel
But
The
achievements
ment
embodying
of a great
pects
thing
Gatsby
of American
is part and parcel
of a total
artistic
the seriousness,
and depth
catholicity,
of Gatsby
and
Fitzgerald
patterned,"
The
burden
novel.
The
of his
novel
"I want
work.
extraordinary
and degree
like Gatsby.
is nothing
less than one of the very
The
literature.
technical
achieve
Great
great
ment
called it
different
is of course a fine, if frequently flawed,
Tender Is the Night
novel.
and
beautiful
wrote
of
to write
this
something
achieve
one
ex
new?some
and
intricately
simple
as he was planning
the
the manner
is to demonstrate
and
to a friend
essay
success.
is built
around
three major
settings
which
are de
picted primarily in terms of light and color imagery and a fourth
which,
though
somewhat
less precise
in its outlines
and
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imagery,
is
428
of
equal
THE
GREAT
The
settings
importance.
GATSBY
in order
are,
of
appearance,
East Egg, the valley of ashes, West Egg, and downtown New
York. Chapter I is devoted primarily to East Egg, even though
other settings figure briefly. Chapter II focuses on the valley of
even
ashes,
ter IV presents
As the imagery
of the action
part
though
ter III defines West
Egg,
New
downtown
York
previously
In
I
Chapter
"white
acknowledged.
the narrator,
of
vasively
look out
the white
tells
forms.
and
band.
race will
not
is even
and her
She
right.
and
than
Carraway,
has,
em
I believe,
the
introduces
the
per
and
Egg",
particularly
of the Buchanans,
who dress
in white
Nick,
Buchanan
Daisy
she
clothes
universal
Nick
race.
talk endlessly about the white
Buchanan
in its own
East
fashionable
palaces
white mansion
as a setting
resonant,
patterned,
on a symbolic
character which
take
these settings
suggestive,
a
more
theme
bodies
serious and
been
Chap
and more
more
becomes
is set in Manhattan.
though it too shifts to the city. Chap
idea is if we don't
Tom
be utterly
submerged,"
in various
times and
but many
Tom's
ideas, but in terms of skin
be?will
once
mocks
more
alter
"The
white
conspicuously
ego,
Jordan
Baker,
are
than
her
hus
<cboth in white"
on Nick's first visit, and on his only other recorded visit to East
Egg
are again
the girls
wearing
"white
dresses".
On
the
latter
occasion Nick compares them to "silver idols". Still later, he
speaks of Daisy as "gleaming like silver" when he is recalling the
as a young
she made
impression
lady
in Louisville
on Lieutenant
Jay Gatsby, who saw her "white face [come] up to his own"
when he first made love to her. During those Louisville years,
as described by Jordan Baker, Daisy "dressed in white, and had
a little white
White,
makes more
roadster".
even
after
one
appearances
such as
near-synonyms
in the novel
than any other single
excludes
silver,
color,
and something like three of every four are applied to East Egg
or characters
parent
from East
exceptions
Egg,
sometimes
especially
contribute
to Daisy.
Even
to the pattern.
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the ap
ex
For
A.
E.
429
ELMORE
ample, Nick wears "white flannels" to the first party he attends
at Gatsby's. Although he lives onWest Egg, Nick is a relative
of Daisy's
and much
to her
closer
Indeed, at the very beginning
to Gatsby's.
than
social milieu
states flatly
of the novel, Nick
an un
for which
I have
everything
"represented
custom
whose
scorn". To take another
affected
Gatsby,
example,
or
the man,
suits
define
caramel-colored
virtually
ary
pink
that Gatsby
wears
on one
long-awaited
reunion
with
the
light.
reflected
The
a "white
Nick's
Although
into
occasion
evening,
When
he
toward
vent
a moment,"
last sunshine fell with
face.
. . ."
Still
is his
the
sunlight",
an
visit
"winking ferociously toward the fer
he
says
slightly
of Daisy,
later
"the
romantic affection upon her glowing
the
later,
occasion
on
emphasis
are "glowing
now with
are
"sun-strained".
eyes
flicker on
and candles
the
is throughout
the windows
arrives,
sun.
of the
Jordan's
sees Daisy
The
the Buchanans extends well
there
the table. Nick
"For
suit".
Daisy.
first visit with
gold"
is "open
porch
sun".
flannel
candles
are
re-lit.
Even
inside,
"the
crimson room bloomed with light." At the end of Nick's visit
the Buchanans stand "side by side in a cheerful square of light".
Driving home, Nick frames the gas-pumps he passes in "pools
of light", and he describes the night itself as "bright".
The word "bright" serves to connect light itself with the per
vasive
most
we
whiteness
frequently
bright
Well
novel
chapters
observed.
Again,
face was
to Daisy.
"Her
in it, bright eyes and a bright
the word
sad
and
is applied
lovely with
mouth.
. . ."
over a third of the total appearances of "bright"
in the
things
occur
I alone,
although
for the very
in Chapter
passionate
the novel
includes
nine
are
except
VII,
long Chapter
in length.
include
The
appearances
remaining
of
she reunites with Gatsby,
smile when
of Daisy's
which,
similar
roughly
a
description
windows
Daisy's
mobile
have
accident,
on
and,
of Gatsby's
night
vigil
of Daisy's
in a flashback,
the
after
porch
ville.
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the
auto
in Louis
430
THE
The
Buchanans
the
represent
faces?Southern
beautiful white
sents
GATSBY
of white,
rich, old-family
wing
in the era immediately
Protestant
America
follow
one
War
I. Daisy
fa
of its enduringly
represents
Anglo-Saxon,
ing World
miliar
GREAT
wealth
from
gleaned
Tom
"the
of the republic" and refined by Eastern education.
former
Fay
Daisy
Tom
bright.
Lake
ings,
Louisville,
gone
He
straw-haired
man".
in a context
suggests
national
which
name,1
emy
and
a Confederate
later
Buchanan.
James
of the word
meaning
The
whiteness
a social
class.
ditions, white
or
One,
gerald's
is to say
In both
There
Buchanan
is not
history
because
of the Naval Acad
person".
may
and
suggest
abode.
than
tra
is symbolic of the
who
Shelley,
once",
more
Judeo-Christian
(which is to say unbroken light)
to me
Scottish
American
however,
Egg,
the Neoplatonic
or of His
of God,
own words
"a God
is little
is an old
of Presi
officer, and because
so obviously
but one
British,
naval
"Fay"
is "a white
of East
is not a Catholic,
is Tom.
that neither
of Franklin Buchanan, first Superintendent
dent
forever
gleaming,
II that Daisy
origin.
associated
with
conspicuously
is the
Daisy
wander
and, after many
to
hair?"a
his
is a true Nordic
up
We
he
is Protestant.
Evidently
in Chapter
about Tom's
fields
to Yale
has
in the East.
have Nick's word
doubt
forever
repre
dark
is "Tom Buchanan of Chicago", which
who
Forest,
settled
sturdy
of
. . .Our
girlhood.
as she calls it)?while
[girlhood],"
another?enormous
white
("Our
gentility
adopted
was
in Fitz
the Neoplatonic
color symbolism in A don?is when he figured the created world
(life) as a "dome of many-coloured glass" and the milieu of the
One
(eternity)
persistently
courtesy
bay
that
he
local
heavens".
East
has
as "white
radiance".
described
as white.
at East
near the
Egg
out to determine
"come
In terms
of
In Revelation,
stares
Gatsby
As
end
heaven
across
is
the
of Chapter
says
I, Nick
share was his of our
what
imagery,
the
local
heaven
is clearly
Egg.
not
1Strictly
then,
speaking,
as it is applied
to any American,
Anglo-Saxon,
particularly
but within
a Protestant,
the province
of that
of British
descent.
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term
A.
that
Note
in addition
E.
to light and whiteness,
on a "windy
East Egg
enters
this setting.
Nick
the
inside
Buchanans'
house,
A
breeze
blew
431
ELMORE
the wind
through
the
air
characterizes
Even
evening".
is playing.
room,
blew
in at one
curtains
end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up
toward
rippled
as wind
the frosted wedding-cake
over the wine-colored
does on the sea.
of
the
and
ceiling,
a
shadow
rug, making
then
on it
The
in the room was an
only completely
object
stationary
enormous
women
were
couch on which
two young
buoyed
were both
in
balloon.
up as though upon an anchored
They
white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if
they had just been blown back in after a short flight around
the house.
I must
have stood for a few moments
listening
to the whip
and snap of the curtains and the groan of a pic
ture on the wall.
Then
there was a boom as Tom
Buchanan
shut the rear windows
and the caught wind
died out about
the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young
women
to the floor.
ballooned
slowly
This
passage
represents
more
than
mere
physical
description.
is no reason inherent in the physical setting for Nick to
fancy that the girls "had just been blown back in after a short
There
flight
around
the house".
to suggest
clearly means
the remainder
of the
throughout
Nick
certain
and
intangible
qualities,
chapter
he employs
of
and
often
images
air, suspension,
flight,
metaphori
as
sits
if
her chin.
cally.
Jordan
upon
something"
"balancing
an
Nick
uses
that her lips "fluttered".
observes
He
extended
on the verge
"The murmur
trembled
of
flight:
sank
mounted
al
and
then
ceased
coherence,
down,
excitedly,
are unobtrusive
There
in such statements
together."
metaphors
.
.
.
as "The
...
all
and
rang inside,
telephone
subjects vanished
into air." What
is suggested
is a non-terrestrial,
world
suspended
metaphor
of
3
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432
whose
THE
float
inhabitants
if "buoyed
up"
or fly
contrast,
dusty,
obscure,
or
GATSBY
sit "completely
as
motionless"
on air.
the
By
GREAT
valley
and, above
of
ashes
all,
gray.
presented
in Chapter
is
II
About half way between West Egg and New York the
motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for
a quarter of a
so as to shrink away from a certain deso
mile,
late area of land.
This
of ashes?a
is a valley
fantastic
farm where
ashes grow
like wheat
into ridges and hills and
where
ashes
take the forms
of houses
grotesque
gardens;
a tran
and chimneys
and rising
smoke
with
and, finally,
men
move
crum
scendent
who
and already
effort, of
dimly
a
the powdery
air. Occasionally
line of gray
bling
through
cars crawls
an invisible
out a ghastly
along
track, gives
men
the ash-gray
creak, and comes to rest, and immediately
swarm up with
leaden
spades and stir up an impenetrable
screens
obscure
their
from your
cloud, which
operations
sight.
But
above
the gray
land and the spasms
of bleak
dust
over it, you perceive,
which
drift endlessly
after a moment,
the eyes of Doctor
T. J. Eckleburg.
The
T.
eyes of Doctor
are
are
one
blue
and
retinas
J. Eckleburg
gigantic?their
yard high.
They
look out of no face, but, instead, from a
which
pass over a non
pair of enormous
yellow
spectacles
nose.
some
existent
set
wild
of an oculist
wag
Evidently
them there to fatten his practice
in the borough
of Queens,
and then sank down himself
or forgot
into eternal blindness,
them and moved
But his eyes, dimmed a little by
away.
many
days under
paintless
solemn
dumping
ground.
sun and
rain,
on over
brood
the
are yellow,
eyes are blue and his spectacles
but
Eckleburg's
a
have
been
"dimmed
little
under
they
by many
days
paintless
sun and
set them up perhaps
"sank
rain", and the oculist who
Dr.
down
gray
himself
in the
penetrable",
into
valley
eternal
of
"obscure",
ashes
blindness".
What
is, to use Nick's
"dimmed",
"dim",
is not
own
explicitly
"im
words,
"dismal",
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"bare",
A.
"shadow
"dust-covered",
we
which
shall
433
ELMORE
[y]",
"blurred",
"hazy",
"pale",
otherwise
in color.
drab
white
E.
"ashen",
"faded",
"blind",
"darkening",
for a
Except
consider
"veiled",
"black"?or
of Buchanan
sprinkling
the colors in this chapter tend
later,
is first seen wearing
to range from dull to dark. Myrtle Wilson
a blue
and
and the blue is "dark",
dress, but even it is "spotted"
From
muslin".
she later changes
into another
of "brown
figured
a "brown washrag
a "gray
of a
old man"
she buys a dog with
does
She selects a "lavender-colored"
back".
taxicab, but Nick
color nor
Neither
not fail to note that it has "gray upholstery".
light lingers.
I heard
Then
on
footsteps
a stairs,
and
in a moment
the
thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the
office door.
... we
slid out
But
sunshine.
immediately
of the station into the glowing
the
from
she turned
sharply
. . .
window.
. . .
the mass
from
that
everything
has
happened
a dim,
hazy
cast over
it,
was full of
although until after eight o'clock the apartment
sun.
cheerful
to gray,
number
of the references
in the novel
overwhelming
are
to other dark colors, and to darkness
themselves
and dimness
An
applied to the valley of ashes and its inhabitants.
Fitzgerald's
waste
Eliot's
land, but
Eliot's
the similarities.
and
ashes
mythology,
is. The
"brood
on over
burning
waste
specifically
of an
the
has
been
the differences
eyes
solemn
to
frequently
compared
are more
than
instructive
is not, in terms of
Christian.
Fitzgerald's
enormous
oculist wearing
its imagery
of
valley
land
The
spectacles
Greek word
ground".
dumping
versions
of the New
Testa
English
a constantly
the Valley
of Hinnom,
from
In Dante
of Jerusalem.
south and west
in most
Gehenna?"hell"
ment?was
of ashes
valley
derived
garbage-dump
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434
GREAT
THE
and Milton,
ness?"darkness
son's hair
better
among
others,
visible".
from
color
with
as an "ashen,
dark
gray
with
Fitzgerald's
men
ash-gray
of
inhabitants
leaden
spades.
a
through her husband "as if he were
in the novel
Later
ghost".
and
of obscurity
B. Wil
changed
George
Fitzgerald
to
to
make
it fit
obviously
"yellow"
"pale",
walks
Wilson
Myrtle
is a place
hell
his surroundings.
are ghostly
people,
the valley
GATSBY
the murderous
Wilson
. . .
fantastic
Satan
appears,
the amor
through
figure gliding
a line of gray cars
The
trees".
ash-gray men work beside
phous
which
"crawls
creak",
track, gives out a ghastly
along an invisible
Fi
Railroad".
of Hawthorne's
"Celestial
reminiscent
perhaps
like,
"the
nally,
after
river,"
the manner
by
on one
is bounded
side by a small
foul
Inferno.
of Dante's
is characterized by pure white light and the valley
If East Egg
of ashes
of ashes
valley
the absence
light, West
of
es
is characterized,
Egg
pecially in Chapter III, by the broken light of the prism or rain
or the "various
of A don?is
"many-coloured
glass"
as
of
"Garden".
This
Marvell's
setting,
"many-colored"
light"
Nick
it in a later chapter,
himself
describes
encloses
"enough
a Christmas
to
enormous
tree
colored
make
of
Gatsby's
lights
bow?the
The
garden".
"halls
colors."
primary
the form
and
salons
and
are
verandas
gaudy
these
of gold)
Among
is at once
with
in
(often
the most
primary
colors, yellow
the most
and
conspicuous
pervasive.
Gatsby's
meet
all
lemons
station
trains".
arrived.
to a dark
gold".
wagon
"scampered
like
a brisk
cocktail music".
Two
"yellow
girls
and Nick
this color with
associates
dresses",
A
times
man
known
motif
before
wearing
simply
of West
bug
to
crates
five
of oranges
and
"Every
Friday
. . ."
are
and
"bewitched
Pastry
turkeys
pigs
The
bar has "a real brass rail".
The
orchestra
plays
five
yellow
the
chapter
"enormous
is out.
Jordan's
wear
them
"twin
yellow
fewer than
no
arm
is "golden".
owl-eyed
spectacles"?afterwards
as Owl-Eyes?inspects
The
Gatsby's
library.
recurs
in
Gats
yellow
subsequent
Egg
chapters.
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A.
to be yellow.
proves
spects on that occasion
his reunion with Daisy
a "gold-colored
tie"
the toilet set which Daisy
Even
Much
is of "pure dull gold".
later,
to be incommensurate
has proved
walks
Gatsby
of the oranges
great vision,
the remainders
rinds",
strikes down Myrtle
wears
Gatsby
for his reunion with Daisy.
Gatsby's
435
ELMORE
the "death car" which
by's Rolls-Royce,
Wilson,
E.
disconsolately
and
after
with
"fruit
among
lemons
in
III.
of Chapter
In a flashback centered on his lonely return to Louisville
after
a "yellow
watches
trolley"
Gatsby
marriage,
racing his
if
the
"once
have seen
and
wonders
in
it
day-coach
might
people
the pale magic
the casual street".
of her face along
the
Indeed,
Daisy's
association of yellow or gold with Gatsby begins even before the
novel
On
does.
the
title
page
appears
a little
four-line
poem
a
which Fitzgerald attributed to Thomas Parke d'Invilliers,
character in his first novel, This Side of Paradise:
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce
for her too,
she cry "Lover,
gold-hatted,
high-bouncing
I must
have you!"
Till
Only
a few months
the novel
naming
Yellow
before publication Fitzgerald
Gold-Hatted
Gatsby.
in Chapter VIII
living Gatsby
makes
lover,
more
Our
final
view
is under "yellowing
than
appearances
of
the
trees".
other
any
considered
single
color
except white, and both yellow and gold are applied pre
dominantly toWest Egg and in particular to Gatsby.
(Note that
the Egg-islands
both
and West
in yellow.)
Egg
appear
in egg
West
colors?East
Egg
yellow
Egg
is the color of
of harvest,
of the sun, of callow youth
precious metal,
the color
of this created
universe.
short,
Gatsby's
word
and
appears
garden"
(the
"garden"
again
again
descriptions
of Gatsby's
It is a world which
only
recently
been
estate)
a version
represents
in white
; it is, in
"glowing
in Nick's
of Eden.
is still close to the water from which
separated,
a world
of
sandy
beaches
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it has
and
436
THE
and swimming pools.
hydroplanes
once
that
discover
again Nick's
a preoccupation
with
reflects
to the "drip"
flow now from
the windows.
diction,
especially
the distinguishing
his metaphors,
this
element,
. .
.")
As R. W.
trembling
to
seemed
B. Lewis
has
ob
is an Adamic
after his initiation,
Even
figure.
because
of the corrupt
lost its innocence
a symbol
of this
remains
the setting
Egg has
of Daisy-Eve,
now shockingly
fallen.
world,
Adam
of what
reconstruction
influence
the forbidden
after
tasting
an
at
unfamiliar
sky through
up
a grotesque
as he found what
shivered
looked
interested reader will
(The
and
in the Sound"
is "floating
and "a sudden
of the banjoes,
emptiness
served, Gatsby
even after West
pendant
dramatic
GATSBY
moon
time water?the
ing
GREAT
up
Gatsby's
might
fruit.
final
is a
vision
have
felt
"He
must
as
he
have
and
leaves
frightening
a rose is and how
thing
A new
was upon
created
the scarcely
raw the sunlight
grass.
.
.
his
." Gatsby
receives
real.
without
material
being
world,
looked
baptism of fire in his swimming pool, dying
Myrtle had died in the dust.
in the water
as
comes in
New York,
downtown
final setting of the novel,
earlier as a sort
to its own in Chapter
it has appeared
IV, though
as
New
II.
Downtown
in
other
of
of extension
Chapter
settings,
its color from those who
is a chameleon-like
York
taking
place,
The
enter
it.
Thus
and
II Myrtle
in Chapter
buys a dull-colored
selects
a taxicab
with
gray
a
man.
old
gray
dog
her up at "one slice in a long
In Chapter
IV, when Gatsby
upholstery
his world
Tom
by putting
duplicates
cake of apartment-houses".
white
sees "skins
Nick
takes Nick
downtown,
from
in the
tigers flaming"
on the Grand
In addition
Canal.
of
fictional
young Gatsby's
palace
a
of metal,
he sees
slung on a ribbon",
"piece
the
from little Montenegro,
for valor
reward
which
is Gatsby's
"sunlight
through
cross the Queensboro
and
as the two men
the girders"
Bridge,
to three Negroes
who
which
of . . . eyeballs"
the "yolks
belong
no
With
cross
Island.
as
Blackwell's
single dis
pass them
they
tinguishing
color
of
its own,
the
downtown
setting
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reveals
its
A.
character
437
ELMORE
drawn
from fire or its mani
imagery
re
and water
have distinguished,
earth,
(Air,
three previous
In Chapter
IV, Nick
settings.)
through
largely
heat.
festation,
E.
the
spectively,
sits with Gatsby
and Meyer Wolfsheim
in a restaurant
during
of
the
noon".
In
part
VII,
day?"roaring
Chapter
of the novel, Nick
from the city to East Egg
travels
hottest
climax
the "warmest"
day
of the year,
and he
returns
with
the
the
on
to
the others
the
heat.
Like
sepa
as the
bemoan
and Jordan
the unbearable
city while
Daisy
the fire of purgatory,
the heat of the city is purifying,
the dross
from the true metal.
It reveals Daisy
rating
vacuous
in the Plaza
she is during
the confrontation
person
weak,
suite between Gatsby
and Tom,
but it brings out the real strength,
even after hav
and
sacrificial
who
devotion
of Gatsby,
integrity,
ing lost Daisy
from
the
keeps vigil outside her window
of
consequences
and protects her
she has
the manslaughter
committed,
though it leads to his own death.
name
suggests
"gat", which was gangster
(whose
jar
on
one
in
for
the
level
the
gon
represents
'twenties)
"gun"
rising
so threatened
lower
Tom
Buchanan
orders which
and WASP
Gatsby
in general.
B. Wilson?
society
blue-eyed
(The blond,
George
an obviously
name which,
with
British
like Buchanan,
had made
another
House?is
its way
into the White
of the
representative
never
can
never
threatens
he
lower orders,
because
but he
rise.
He
knows and keeps his place, even if it is in hell.)
a German
son who
immigrant's
He
is, to Tom,
can win away Daisy,
"Mr.
underworld.
Gatsby
worst
grants;
Yet
fears
a cultural
of
tomorrow
Gatsby
in the garden,
Armageddon.
the
through
from Nowhere".
feel
confirmed
German
Today
If
in his
immi
Negroes.
represents
he moves
He
Tom
Nobody
can only
is
Gatsby
to wealth
has risen
more.
much
From
his
r?le
as Adam
toward
is forever
the grander
r?le of the second
arms under "our
out
his
stretching
Adam,
Jesus.
a "wafer
or standing
of a moon",
under
local heavens",
"his hand up in a formal
of the host", with
gesture
"figure
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this
of
THE
438
farewell".
"He
GREAT
GATSBY
if it means
phrase which,
must
Father's
he
be about His
a son of God?a
was
means
just that?and
the
service
of a vast, vulgar,
and meretricious
beauty.
business,
sort
he invented
of Jay Gatsby
that a seventeen-year-old
just the
anything,
So
boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faith
ful to the end."
Gatsby
is thus a sacrificial
a tragic
but not
figure.
His death stems not from hubris but from devotion to Daisy, who
is nothing less to Gatsby than the Platonic ideal for which he had
created "his Platonic conception of himself".
Still, Gatsby does
a
to
his fall. He weds
have flaw, and it leads at least indirectly
had committed himself to
his vision to an inferior object?"he
cor
he is thereby
of a grail"?and
like Lancelot
following
son
The
for the true Grail.
from searching
rupted and deterred
loses the power
to a mortal
of God allies himself
and, "betrayed",
the
which made him divine. Or, in another image, the Platonic lover
forsakes the ladder of love, which would lead him to some sort of
"Out of
mystical union or fulfillment, for the physical woman:
the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks
formed
really
a ladder
to a secret
and mounted
place
above
the
trees?he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he
could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable mile of
wonder."
Afterward,
having
forfeited
his
right
to climb
alone,
he knew that "his mind would never romp again like the mind of
God."
The
novel
can be at once
Her
"simple"
white
is associated
white
is a "mixed" character illustrates how the
fact that Daisy
with
clothes,
"the
is
she
also
but
race,
name reflects this mixture
She
"intricately
patterned".
the
and
white
cars,
houses,
hair.
girl" with "yellowy"
golden
and
white
of colors:
white rays around a yellow disk.
she is torn between
Tom
and Gatsby.
the daisy
usually
bears
All of this is appropriate, for
Still
another
color
is associ
with Daisy?the
green of her dock light, at which
intimately
Green
so
his reunion with her.
before
stared
many
nights
Gatsby
we
and
in the novel,
should not
few appearances
makes
relatively
ated
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E.
A.
439
ELMORE
as the color of Gatsby's
its appearance
cars.
two yellow
In the climactic Chapter
VII,
car.
over
who
drive what
will
argue
overlook
seat
in one
of his
and Tom
Gatsby
cShall we all go in my car?' suggested Gatsby. He felt
the hot, green leather of the seat. 'I ought to have left it
in the
shade.'
'Is it standard shift?' demanded Tom.
<Yes.'
take my
you
'Well,
let me
and
coup?
drive
your
car to
town.'
The
the men
What
was
suggestion
transference
are really
over
of
example
concrete
the
obvious
and
by
touches.
"mixed"
in still
is
Gatsby
Daisy
is the mortal
who
from
incarnation
receives
struggling
more
is made
which
leather which
green
sense.
another
She
is Daisy?an
son of God,
trees.
the Louisville
under
She is also
to
the
the
herself
of
seeming
partake
supernatural,
immortal.
the
Gatsby,
Fay?fairy,
divinely
can we make
What
in the
are,
They
catholic
element"
But
hells
the
they
inheres
because Nick
of his
enormous,
tive spirit
of these
first
and heavens,
devils
and gods?
"a
remnants
of the novel with
place,
of which
Fitzgerald
of which
his short story
and
Gatsby
been a part.
of the work
goal
to Gatsby.
distasteful
are not merely
in them.
East
spoke as he was planning
was
to have
"Absolution"
theme
; the very
vestigial
as heaven
is presented
Egg
is being true to Gatsby's original vision of it as the
son-of-God
eyes
brooding
of God which
visions.
The
of Eckleburg
"dove-like
of ashes, where
the
crea
those
of
the
parody
on the vast
sat'st brooding
valley
. . ." in Paradise
it pregnant
is literally
Lost}
as
"an advertisement".
is absent except
The
as
is that of the Greek
he
the
comforts
boy Michaelis,
B. Wilson
after Myrtle's
George
death?Michaelis,
mad'st
Abyss/And
a
God
place where
description
bereaved
from Michael,
the prophetic
angel.
Gatsby's
world,
West
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Egg,
440
THE
GREAT
GATSBY
as
Eden
and evolves
into the fallen, mortal
begins
uncorrupted
sun.
world?the
West
of the setting
The
of the fiery
purgatory
inner city is a place of confrontation
and suffering,
but also?un
like the valley
of ashes?a
from which
is possible.
escape
place
"Human
has
sympathy
and we were
its limits,
content
to let all
their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind." Of
course all of this is nothing if not ironic. East Egg is heavenly
in Gatsby^s
only
pristine
of the valley
inhabitants
Buchanan
that, say, Tom
most
world's
Queensboro
is.
the city which
"seen
glamorous
city,
is always
the city seen for the first
Bridge
The
Edenic
from
world
itself?West
to
innocence
best
ironic
be
use
illustrated
whiteness
of East
and truth as Nick
Daisy's
world.
godly?indeed
ness (which
Tom's
Nick's
never
nature
of
color
time,
the
in its
in the
and the beauty
as we have seen,
Egg?moves,
odor of postlapsarian
mortality,
and assume
the very qualities which
the "heaven"
imagery
by Fitzgerald's
Egg
from
the
only at the end to move
again
with
earlier had been associated
The
of Daisy
The
Fay Buchanan.
are never diabolical
in the way
in the
is set squarely
Purgatory
promise of all the mystery
first wild
world".
vision
of ashes
begins
and
use
of East
Egg.
can perhaps
symbolism
The
of white.
heavenly
as a symbol
of beauty,
goodness,
attempts to be faithful to Gatsby's vision of
un
how utterly
has gauged
after Nick
However,
white
Buchanans
their
inhuman?the
really
are,
even from the beginning
of evil as in
has undertones
on an ugly and markedly
evil character.
rather with Tom,
them?or
since Daisy
with
final meeting
a
account
of the
death?is
brilliant
after Gatsby's
reappears
racial
ideas)
of one kind
say?as
might
is symbolized
"vast
takes
of evil. Nick
carelessness".
defines
it?almost
Whatever
charitably,
its proper
one
name,
it
only a pair of
perhaps
by "a pearl necklace?or
a
store
to buy.
into
The
Tom
which
cuff buttons"
goes
jewelry
itself
swine, and the pearl
pearl of great price has been cast before
cuff buttons
The
recall the horror
has come to seem swine-like.
of the corrupt Wolfsheim's
cuff
links, made
from
human
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molars.
E.
A.
Whiteness
allied with evil seems peculiarly appalling, as Ish
mael
saw when
After
of
speaking
in Revelation,
John
lated
he
associations,
there yet
sublime,
idea of
441
ELMORE
reflected
such
on
of Moby
in the vision
the whiteness
as
"whites"
those
Dick.
of
St.
accumu
"yet for all these
observes,
and
and honorable,
is sweet,
whatever
an
innermost
in the
elusive
lurks
something
Ishmael
with
to the soul than
of panic
strikes more
hue, which
to
Ishmael
in blood."
which
that redness
proceeds
affrights
or terror:
elusive
"This
the worst
form of this "panic"
describe
quality
vorced
this
when
causes
of whiteness,
the thought
it is, which
with
and
from more
any
associations,
coupled
kindly
ject terrible in itself, to heighten
di
ob
that terror to the furthest
Great
Bu
Tom
by
Gatsby
Surely
is guilty
less than a form of premeditated
of nothing
chanan, who
can say, "That
fellow had it coming
murder
and who nonetheless
even as he invites Nick
to him,"
to pity him because
of his mis
if
I
tress's death
think
didn't have my share of suffer
you
("And
the
bounds."
end
of The
to give up that flat and saw that
I went
here, when
ing?look
damn
box of dog biscuits
there on the sideboard,
I sat
sitting
seem
must
to any reader with
down
and cried like a baby"),
an
moral
in itself".
The
terrible
straw-haired
sanity
"object
man has a headpiece
straw and a heart whose
darkness
filled with
is now
In the background
the white, white Daisy?
fully visible.
for whom
the pearl necklace
is presumably
seems
intended?also
a
like all the "scarcely
in
created world"
"grotesque
thing",
final
vision.
Gatsby's
does not end with
ironic inversion.
technique
Fitzgerald's
the end of the novel, white
its
traditional
symbolic
regains
at last, to Gatsby.
value as it is applied,
On his last night
in the
a
revisits
Nick
incoherent
failure
of
house".
Gatsby's
East,
"huge
act
he
There
the most
commits
in the
significant
symbolic
Yet
Before
novel.
boy with
I erased
scrawled
steps an obscene word,
by some
a piece of brick, stood out clearly
in the moonlight,
and
the
shoe
stone."
With
my
it, drawing
raspingly
along
"On
the white
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442
THE
GREAT
GATSBY
this act Nick almost literally wipes Gatsby's slate clean. Gatsby's
whiteness
emergent
is. Thus,
It
intact.
is the only
life at least
choice?to
pursue
which
whiteness
lost his Eden, his Eve,
though Gatsby has, like Adam,
and his very
moral
is left
a single mistaken
partly as the result of
an inferior
has
of
adoration?he
object
inNick's eyes gained, with his sacrificial death, all of the heavenly
of Fitz
It is only an extension
by whiteness.
implied
own imagery
to say that Gatsby
He
is "saved".
is not
gerald's
more
to go to a literal
saved
from a literal
hell
any
heaven,
qualities
than Goethe's Faust is. But the essential purity of his "religion"
of romantic idealism is confirmed by Nick's act.
Surely
imagery
one misses
the meaning
of this act?and
one
as
assumes,
generally?when
Piper
is "irretrievably
damned"
of the symbolic
does, that Gatsby
and that the romantic
idealism he
is not, as
Gatsby
a tragedy,
a
because
its protagonist
is not finally
believes,
Piper
hero.
As Nick
turned
says in the opening
tragic
chapter, "Gatsby
out all right at the end."
sufficient
great
has, perhaps,
Gatsby
ness for a tragic hero, and he has a flaw which
him for
prepares
embodies
a fall.
Tom
is likewise
The
condemned.
Great
But the fall is directly the result, not of his flaw, but of
Tom
Buchanan's.
of
the
informs
B. Wilson
George
death-car's
identity
owner,
knowing,
certain
death will be the almost
that Gatsby's
to
does
protect Myrtle's
everything
possible
of
the
one must
suppose,
consequence.
Gatsby
real
killer,
events
of
Daisy,
and finally gives his life as part of the effort.
our final
Furthermore,
is not Gatsby's
can
suggest
but Nick
not
only
the
Buchanans?"care-away"?but
away the lesson of Gatsby's
on
the
he
name
very
(Carraway's
the
shared at first with
perspective
Carraway's.
carelessness
also
life
his
as he
ultimate
returns
the novel
to
ability
to the West
carry
and
the form
takes
of
Nick's
the story.)
perspective
to
we might
fall"
Fitz
the
in
contradistinction
"dying
call,
the
rise".
Is
at
the "living
Tender
the
end
of
used
Nighty
gerald
to the sense of promise
and renewal
I am referring
by
implied
reconstructs
what
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A.
E.
Nick's final vision of the Dutch
breast
Gatsby's
but
real",
gests
new
the
of
last moments,
in a context
and
hope
living, growing
seats.
rebirth.
sailors viewing the "fresh, green
Nick
world".
443
ELMORE
revives
the
terrible
vision
of
of "a new
without
material
being
world,
Nick's
sug
fatalism,
despite
explicit
to
that at last green
is here applied
which,
Note
things, instead of to dock lights and automobile
a vindication
idealism
of romantic
is finally
a
not
as Piper
of
It
it.
does
criticism
represent,
claims,
. . . the bosom
of Mother
also claims, "a retreat toward
a novel
started out to write
It is true that Fitzgerald
the novel
Thus
and not,
as Piper
Church".
with a catholic element, but he ended by adopting the imagery
and framework of his native Catholic Christianity to delineate an
essentially
in an age
and
romantic
hence
and vast
of unbelief
secular
world-view.
carelessness,
the
Although,
romantic
idealist
like Gatsby is almost certain to be defeated before he reaches his
particular
seding
goal,
tragedy
there
remains
and perhaps
the
making
super
consolation,
enduring
that the vision
it impossible,
ary pilgrim who is faithful to the end will find the journey itself
as a monument
not
The Great Gatsby
endures
victory.
to
to that notion
to
underrated
but also
power
Fitzgerald's
sufficient
only
build a universal
theme from a brilliantly
effective
structure.
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technical