In addition to the natural imagery of Chapter Six of
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, there is much color imagery, imagery
that prevails throughout the course of the novel.
For
instance, during the chronicle of Gatsby's history, Gatsby is described as having in his
youth as a clam digger, a "brown, hardening body [who]
lived naturally." In contrast to his naturalness, Gatsby wears a
blue coat after he goes to work for Dan Cody. This allusion to blue for
Gatsby is a recurring one, for his "blue lawns" of Chapter Three mingle with the "blue
smoke of his brittle leaves" in one passage; and, his chauffeur wears "robins' egg blue"
in Chapter Three. Like the eyes of T. J. Eckleberg on the billboard in the Valley of
Ashes, blue signifies illusions and alternatives to reality. Curiously, at the party
Daisy notices a lovely girl who talks with her director, a man with a "sort of blue
nose" that Daisy says she
likes.
Grey is also
mentioned. As the color of the ashes in the area of destruction, this color represents
lifelessness and possible decay. Dan Cody, " a grey, florid man with a hard
empty face." Representing more decay, Cody is the man who has given Gatsby his "legacy
of twenty-five thousand dollars."
Decadence is suggested
by yellow: "yellow cocktail music": of course, in
connection with Daisy the color gold is used: "...here's
my little gold pencil..." And, she, too, is associated with grey: "A breeze stirred
the grey haze of Daisy's fur collar."
While the party has
"the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion" as Nick feels an "unpleasantness in the
air, a pervading harshness that hadn't been there before." At the end of the evening,
Nick sits on the front steps where
It was dark here in front: only the bright door
sent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black
morning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-room blind above,
gave way to another shadow, and indefinite procession of shadows, who
rouged and powdered in an invisible
glass.
With such color
imagery, illusion, decadence, and decay are suggested. The unpleasantness that Nick
senses is reflected in these colors as Chapter Six leads to the next chapter which
contains the climax of Fitzgerald's narrative.
Back in
Chapter Three, there are also several metaphors:
...an
extra gardener toiled...repairing the ravages of the night
before.
a pyramid of pulpless
halves.
the opera of
voices
the sea-change of faces
and voices and color...
There are also
oxymorons:
"enthusiastic meetings between women who never
knew each other's names."
..."the rules of behavior
associated with amusement parks."
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