I know everyone reads this in high school, but since my husband is a high school English teacher, I've started to see the reasoning behind the books they used to assign us. I'm attempting to re-read the "Great American Classics" in an effort to better understand them (a little bit at a time, of course).
The Great Gatsby is a great novel. What fascinated me the most was the color scheme - it was so limited, that it begs attention. The main colors are gray, gold, white, and green. Now, other colors appear (smatterings of blue, pink and brown), but these colors appeared obsessively. I feel like Fitzgerald uses them to embody the main themes of the book.
Gold (or yellow) / White = very literally, the gold standard (ie, the American Dream). The people who come to Gatsby's parties, those whom he's trying to impress with his wealth, are almost always dressed in white. Gold-colored champagne flows, even the car he drives is a light yellow - almost a combination of these two colors..
Gray = the inability to attain this dream. The "valley of ashes" that they pass through to get to the city is inhabited by a man who will eventually lose everything of his and be the end of Gatsby. His person, his shop, the scenery that surrounds him is such a chalky gray that you have to stifle a sneeze just when reading those pages.
Green = also the American dream, but in this case, something very specific: Gatsby's object of affection and obsession, Daisy. After years of trying to make himself worthy of her approval, he earns the money that puts him right across the sound from her home. At night, he watches the green light attached to her dock the way some people watch a candle that's been lit in a vigil. At the very end of the book, Gatsby summons the ghosts of the first Americans who came searching for their dream - a green swath of land they could claim as their own. Green is definitely the color of hope and new life. Just make sure you secure a patch that's free of gray if at all possible.
I finished reading this book a few days ago and it's still sticking with me. I can't accept the idea that the American dream is not real, though we see it crumbling around us as the foreclosure rate goes up everyday. Ever out of reach ... seems like such a cruel trick. I guess what they don't tell you is that the American Dream is a coin with two sides. In order to rise to something great, you have to come from something humble. If you overestimate your greatness, you'll be returned to humble circumstances again. Maybe the Romans had it right with their wheel of fortune after all.
THE great American novel? I don't know about that. But it is definitely a great American novel - no doubt about it.
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