Caden Eiserman

Mr. Smith

Junior Literature

11/21/22

Symbolism

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the color white is used to illustrate not only the character's

personality and morals but the attributes of purity, cleanliness and peacefulness. The color white first appears

when Nick meets up with Daisy and Tom after arriving in New york. As it says “They were both in white and

their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the

house”. (Fitzgerald 7). Fitzgerald’s purpose when tying in the color white with the description of daisy is

portraying innocence and clarity. Innocence could be used to show how Daisy wants to be seen rather than

what she may be like. Not just only the color of the dress but the description of what the dress is doing,

fluttering. Fluterin could be used as a light fun description and could be another way of trying to portray

Daisy and her character. Similar to this quote explains that color and clothing can tie together to portray not

only an emotion but a perception someone wants to make on someone. As it says “Mrs. Wilson had changed

her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream colored chiffon,

which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room.”(Fitzgerald 23). In this example, the way they

use the color “cream” or white might add to the fact that Mrs Wilson is trying to show different faces or

emotions to change the perception of the people around her. the color white is usually tethered with the idea

of innocence and purity, maybe Mrs Wilson wants people to think that she's not just someone who's having an

affair with someone's wife. Towards the end of the novel, Fitzgerald includes the color once again to not

portray an emotion with clothing, but a front of what Gatsby wants himself to appear towards others. When it

says “I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there
in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and toolboxes, and terraced with a

labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of

green leather conservatory, we started to go to town.” The purpose of this quote was to show how Gatsby

wants to be portrayed towards the world rather than how he is seen. The community as a whole has a pretty

fixed and opinionated perception on what Gatsby's life was before the big mansions and populated parties.

Fitzgerald’s use of the colors white and cream clearly highlights how emotions and perception are portrayed

through these symbols, not only through clothing and appearances but through personal belonging to add a

higher meaning for the character throughout the novel.

 Skill Exemplary Proficient Emerging

Identifies the prompt and Identifies a symbol and a Identifies the book
makes a specific claim theme
about the connection
Topic Sentence
between a symbol and a
theme

Includes specific and Includes 3 pieces of Includes two or

meaningful evidence evidence from the text fewer pieces of
evidence

Evidence

Explains the figurative Explains the figurative Summarizes the

significance of the significance of the symbol evidence and
symbol and how that and a theme in the novel. mentions an idea in
Analysis
contributes to the the novel.
development of a
theme.

Follows paragraph Follows paragraph Includes elements of

Organization organization and is organization, including a paragraph
organized to show how transitions between ideas
ideas build on one and a concluding sentence
another

All quotes are correctly Most quotes are correctly Shows evidence of
integrated integrated and cited basic proofreading

Shows evidence of careful All sentences are complete

Conventions proofreading
No personal pronouns used
(I, you, us, we)
 Shows evidence of
proofreading

Caden,
You had an absolutely awesome claim in your topic sentence! I think in the body of the paragraph, you
struggled to really express all the ideas that were present in the claim. In future writing, keep in mind that
you should constantly be turning back to your claim to determine if you are actually defending it. Also, I
left some notes on improving your writer's voice. Overall, try to simplify your sentences for clarity.