CONNOTATIVE MEANINGS OF COLORS IN THE GREAT GATSBY: A FORMALIST APPROACH

Colors play a significant role in terms of shaping the characters' personality and the setting of The Great Gatsby. Although colors have always been one of the most debatable topics of this literary masterpiece, there are few papers merely focusing on their connotations within the world of the novel. Since connotations are closely intertwined with symbols in a literary text, the connotative meanings of colors are commonly accepted as the symbolic meanings of colors. This paper aims to discuss Fitzgerald's use of colors and what connotations they suggest throughout the novel. To that end, formalism is used as the methodology through which the novel is going to be analyzed; therefore, the interpretation of the novel is based on textual evidence gathered from the color words themselves without taking into account any outside influence such as the historical background of the novel and the biography of the author. For instance, Daisy always wears white clothes to represent her girlhood, innocence, and purity. In fact, Fitzgerald consciously uses white for Daisy to portray her as a flawless figure; someone who is like a goddess and has mesmerized Gatsby. However, different shades of white in Daisy's appearance highlight some flaws in her character. Overall, this paper advances the idea that the connotations of colors depend on their relation with the characters and what they want to manifest to the world of the novel.

Keywords:

color imagery , connotations of colors , formalism , symbolic meanings of colors , The Great Gatsby