This month we are reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. As I said in my last post, Fitzgerald uses some amazing imagery in his writing and as his wife Zelda was a painter, it is natural that colour plays an important part in his images. Colours can represent different things in different countries and in English there are many idioms that refer to colour, so let’s look at how colour is used in The Great Gatsby and how that relates to some common idioms. Golden stands for successful. 'Golden boy / girl' is the term given to a young person who has great skill and is very popular, usually in sport but not always. ‘the golden boy of British golf’. This expression is also sometimes used in its English form in Italian "il golden boy della finanza internazionale." Jordan Baker is a lady golfer and the colour is often used to infer this meaning by giving this quality to her physical attributes. "With Jordan's slender golden arm resting in mine" "I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder" Golden can also mean extremely valuable: 'a golden opportunity' is a great one that may never present itself again. At Gatsby's parties even the turkeys turn to gold. "..turkeys bewitched to a dark gold". Sometimes instead of gold Fitzgerald uses the colour yellow, to refer to something of lower quality. 'Yellow press' is used for the sensational press, in 'The Great Gatsby' it describes popular music. "now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music". In contrast to the golden girl Jordan, her admirers are only yellow. "two girls in twin yellow dresses" "»You don't know who we are,« said one of the girls in yellow, »but we met you here about a month ago.«" "... we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow". The colour yellow in English is often related to cowardice, perhaps Fitzgerald wanted to empahasize the weakness of the girls’ characters as opposed to that of Jordan. A person can be yellow-bellied or have a yellow streak if they are a coward or very shy. 'There is no point in asking him what to do. He is a yellow-bellied coward, and won’t stand up for what is right!' 'He has always had a big yellow streak running down his back, don’t expect him to change now!' Surprisingly Daisy's daughter has old and yellow hair, perhaps to indicate that she is not as precious to her mother as she should be: "Did mother get powder on your old yellowy hair?" In Italian ‘un giallo’ (literally ‘a yellow’) is a detective story because in the nineteen twenties a publishing house started releasing collections with yellow covers. Silver represents jewellery and richness. ‘Born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth’ means born into a rich family. ‘I don’t think Kelly has ever had a job. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.’ This implies that Kelly has had an easy life, while ‘to be given something on a silver plate/platter’ is again used when something is obtained very easily, without much effort. ‘I offered my heart to him on a silver platter, and he turned it down.’ A common idiom with silver related to nature is ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ meaning that even a situation that can at first seem bad, always has something positive. In The Great Gatsby the moon or moonlight or the stars are often silver: "the silver pepper of the stars"; "The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales"; "A silver curve of the moon hovered already in the western sky". White means moral, honorable, innocent. "High in a white palace the king's daughter, the golden girl". When Nick Carraway visited the Buchanans he met two young women, Daisy and Jordan. "They were both in white". Even the windows at Daisy's house are white "The windows were ajar and gleaming white". "Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white" (Daisy and Jordan). "they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight" (Daisy and Gatsby). "His heart beat faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own". At the end of the novel there is this phrase "On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it". White is a common colour for communions and weddings. If you whitewash something you cover up faults. 'Let's not whitewash the crimes of Stalin' A white lie is a ‘little’ or ‘harmless’ lie told in order to be polite and avoid hurting someone’s feelings, or do something that is not seriously wrong. 'I'd rather tell my mother a white lie than tell her the truth and upset her.' I will never forget my history teacher’s favourite expression - 'I may be green but I’m not a cabbage!’ Green evokes plants and if you think of sprouting plants you can associate the colour green with something new or young. Fitzgerald used it mainly for "not faded", like in "a green old age", or for hope. "I glanced seaward – and distinguished nothing except a single green light". This green light is across the sea where Buchanan's house is supposed to be. Gatsby said: "»You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock«" "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us". Later the whole water between Gatsby and Daisy gets green "On the green Sound, stagnant in the heat,..". If you give someone or get the green light you give or are are given permission to go ahead with something. 'The council gave the green light for construction to begin'. The expression ‘The grass is always greener on the other side’ is used to describe the hope that another place or situation is better than where you are now. 'The grass is always greener on the other side—the sooner you realize that and stop comparing your life to others', the happier you'll be!' As the national colour of Ireland, green represents the colours of the ‘Emerald Isle’ but also luck (the shamrock). The colour green also means envious or jealous: "In the sunlight his face was green". Grey is often used for neutral, dull, not important. "grey little villages in France" "The grey windows disappeared" "... a grey, florid man with a hard, empty face" The Wilsons, living in the valley of ashes, appear in grey, except for Myrtle. Wilson "mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity – except his wife, who moved close to Tom". The only way for Myrtle to get out of the grey seems to be Tom Buchanan. Blue is the color of being depressed, moody, or unhappy. Therefore a lot of things around Gatsby are blue. "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went”. Although a lot of people are in and around his house, his gardens are blue. "... ghostly birds began to sing among the blue leaves”. "So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves". After Myrtle's death George Wilson and Mr.Michaelis are in a blue mood. " ... a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn't far off. About five o'clock it was blue enough outside to snap off the light". "He had come a long way to this blue lawn". There are many expressions with the colour blue with different meanings. Of course the colour blue recalls the sky on a sunny day so if something happens ‘out of the blue’ it happens unexpectedly and is quite a rare event. "Then, out of the blue, a solicitor's letter arrived." Similarly ‘A bolt from the blue’ is unexpected bad news. "It was a complete bolt from the blue for us, we had no idea that they were having problems, let alone getting divorced!" But it’s not all negative ‘blue blood’ indicates nobel or royal descent, and a ‘blue eyed boy’ is the teacher’s pet because blue eyes are often considered a sign of beauty. ( I am not making that up just because I have blue eyes – honest! ) Pink usually has positive connotations. If you are ‘tickled pink’ you are extremely happy or delighted about something. "We were tickled pink when your flowers arrived." And if you are in the pink you are in good health "My grandmother looked ever so well when I saw her, she was in the pink of condition." Sometimes Gatsby appears with the color pink "the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon". When Gatsby and Daisy are finally together, "there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea". Red can be associated with joy, love, shame, and rageThe inside of Buchanan's home is in red. "We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space" "Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light". A red flag is something that gives a warning of a bad or dangerous situation or event. If someone is caught red-handed, they are seen and stopped as they are doing something wrong. 'Timmy tried to get into the cookie jar again, but I caught him red-handed.' In the following story there are a lot of colour idioms in italics. Can you work out their meaning? A Silver Lining In a rash moment I said I'd buy my wife a car for her birthday. The trouble was she had set her heart on a particular colour — white. It had to be white at all costs. I pointed out till I was blue in the face — almost going out of my mind, that white was a very difficult colour to keep clean. But she was adamant and so in the end I decided to surrender — to show the white flag, as it were. We looked at dozens of white and off white cars but none seemed to be worth buying. Now, I'm a bit green — rather inexperienced, about buying cars. I'm the perfect customer as far as the secondhand car salesman is concerned. Take the first place we went to. The manager rolled out the red carpet — gave me preferential treatment, when he saw me coming. He started by showing me the most expensive models he could find, some of which made me turn green with envy — I was quite envious of anyone who could afford to buy one. But as soon as I mentioned the sort of age for the car I had in mind, he started to give me black looks — started to frown. I can't describe the language he used when I gave some idea of the price I was thinking of because it would be red-pencilled — censored. From the beginning I was therefore somewhat browned off — fed up. Once in a blue moon — very rarely, I thought do you come across a genuine bargain. I mean some of the dealers are thoroughly dishonest or is it that they are simply telling white lies — only half-truths? The trouble is you have to buy a car in order to find out. At one garage I actually caught one of the salesmen red-handed — in the middle of his act, just as he was gluing back a chip of paint that had fallen off. I put a black mark against his name — didn't think much of his reputation. But what really made me see red — get angry was when I was told that I would only get an old wreck for what I was prepared to pay. Perhaps I was being a bit moderate but then I didn't want to end up in the red — in debt to the bank. The only way to deal with these salesmen is to put on a bold face. It doesn't matter if you have a yellow streak — are a coward. You don't have to accept the first price and whatever you do don't give the green light — permission to continue with the sale until you're absolutely satisfied. One weekend I decided to leave my car at home and go by train to a large car centre. I was feeling in the pink — very fit as we approached the man standing by the sales office. He had one of those arrogant expressions that act rather like a red rag to me — somehow provoke me. I told him straight that I knew his centre had been black listed by motoring organizations — no longer approved by them and therefore it was no good him trying to whitewash — excuse all the stories I'd heard. That wiped the arrogant expression off his face. The only trouble was that I discovered that I'd not been talking to the sales manager but a fellow customer. In my confusion I tripped over a spare tyre, rolled over and ended up in a ditch. When I got home I was black and blue all over — covered in bruises. By the sixth weekend of looking I was understandably feeling rather blue — somewhat depressed. I'd even considered getting a car through the black market — by some dishonest means. But every cloud has a silver lining — things improve in the end. And that Sunday was a red letter day — a special day to remember, since we finally found a car. We were out driving in the countryside when out of the blue — totally unexpectedly, we saw a notice advertising cars for sale in a farm yard. We saw a man in a brown study — deep in thought sitting in a small hut. He was the farmer cum salesman from whom I eventually bought the car. He quickly dispensed with all the red tape — all the formalities and very soon I had it in black and white — in writing that the car belonged to me. It's quite a good car and it's white or to be more accurate, it's more what you would call two tone. You see with the white there's quite a bit of brown — known less colourfully as rust. Can you find any more references to colour in The Great Gatsby? Write them in the comments!
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What is this?When I started lostinclassics I looked for language lessons in the books I was reading, such as for example the use of phrasal verbs or inversion in conditionals and I explained them through examples found in the text. I also did reviews of the books I read and tried to give some advice on how to read classics using the various resources I know of. Then I switched to just reviews and lately I have been doing a bit of creative writing inspired by my reading. Who knows what I will come up with next! Archives
September 2020
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