The Color Blue In The Great Gatsby

Words: 1106
Pages: 5

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald deals with a love triangle between a married woman, her husband, and her former lover. The book also relates to the infidelity of the marriage the couple has. In the novel Fitzgerald focuses on two different upper classes, new money and old money. Old money is coming from a family with inherited wealth while new money is just recently gaining wealth. Fitzgerald focuses on this separation between classes and money by using the love problems to represent the differences. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses the color blue to symbolize the immoral acts committed by people of the old money class. By closely associating the color blue with the eyes of Doctor T.J Eckleburg Fitzgerald emphasizes this theme …show more content…
Eckleburg and Tom committing immoral acts of infidelity. After Wilson locks Myrtle up in a room, he tells her she can fool him but she can’t fool God: “With an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it” (Fitzgerald 167). When Wilson is talking to Myrtle upstairs in the room he locked her in, he points out to the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg and says “You may fool me but you can’t fool God!” (Fitzgerald 167). His action of doing this symbolizes that the eyes are used to represent a God, because they are placed above the valley and watch over it. Before Wilson explains to Michaelis what had happened between Myrtle and him up inside the room, he shows him a dog collar he found in her belongings: “I found it yesterday afternoon. She tried to tell me about it but I knew it was something funny” (Fitzgerald 166). Wilson had found the dog collar for Tom and Myrtle’s dog that they keep in their apartment for their affair in her stuff. He knew something was up because they do not have a dog. Once Wilson had found this dog collar he questioned Myrtle and she tried to explain but he knew something was funny. Since they do not own a dog Wilson would be suspicious of the fact that she had a dog collar wrapped in tissue paper on her bureau. In these examples, Fitzgerald associates the color blue and the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg with immoral acts committed by people belonging to the old money