White and Cream Colors Symbolism in The Great Gatsby Essay Example

F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, outlines the lives of wealthy New Yorkers during the 1920s. Many characters such as Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan are associated with white, a color representing innocence. However, these characters are in no way innocent and are hiding behind a false mask. Fitzgerald uses the colors white and cream to symbolize how people attempt to conceal their true selves from society and be someone that they are not. 

Fitzgerald uses the colors white and cream to symbolize how characters strive to conceal their true persona to be someone that they are not. One character that depicts this is Myrtle Wilson. Cream is a common color of clothing that she wears, symbolizing her attempts of behaving like a woman of high status when she is of the lower class. For example, Tom and Nick visit the Wilsons where Myrtle is seen wearing a cream colored dress. “Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream colored chiffon…With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur.” This quote proves that with this dress and people around her, she feels the need to appear and behave differently. Cream is an imitation of white, which relates to how Myrtle changes the way she behaves to match someone of the higher class, specifically Daisy Buchanan. She does this due to having an affair with Tom Buchanan, a person of high class, thinking that their affair would lead to her gaining popularity in society as well. Myrtle, along with a few of her family members, live in the Valley of Ashes. This area is known to be a very run down area that symbolizes poverty and the death of the American dream. Tom and Nick were in the Valley of Ashes when Nick mentions going over a fence. “I followed him over a low whitewashed fence, and we walked…” Fitzgerald mentions a whitewashed fence as symbolism of Myrtle and possibly others who live in the Valley of Ashes that have made attempts at raising their social status. The fence being whitewashed signifies that it was originally white, but slowly fades into its original color. This relates to Myrtle’s mindset because she was trying to represent the color white in her actions, which later changes after Tom hits her for trying to act that way. Thus, her mindset changes similarly to how the white fence becomes whitewashed, all because of the need to achieve the ideal lifestyle and gain popularity.

Similarly to Myrtle, Gatsby did not grow up wealthy. Using the colors white and cream, he fabricated a false representation of himself being a part of the old money concept, when he is actually an example of new money.