Gray: Gray is the first color to appear in chapter two. First, it describes a "certain desolate area of land", which happens to be "a valley of ashes". The valley isn't exactly Disney World. The houses, landscape, and people are obscured by a cloud of gray ash. People move dimly and are already crumbling, almost as if they aren't people but ghosts of people. In a way, they appear to be. Nick never gives them another thought and these dismal people disappear in the story. People are also described as gray. "A gray, scrawny Italian child," and a "gray old man," who sells Tom a puppy are both mentioned once, and then never again. The upholstery of the cab is also gray. When something is gray, it is insignificant, and has almost given up on standing up or fighting the world. It goes through the motions of a dismal life, working as well as it can, but in the end, doesn't even get a second glance from Nick. This bleak color has an equally bleak meaning.
Blue: Blue immediately contrasts with the gray in the valley in the form of the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, a weather-beaten pair of eyes left in the valley by an oculist who was trying to open a new business there but, for reasons Nick doesn't know, had to leave, leaving the eyes behind. The eyes of Mr. Wilson, an inhabitant of the gray valley, are also blue. He lives a hard life, verbally abused by Tom, hated by his wife, and running a slow business. Wilson's wife, when first introduced, is wearing a blue dress, although it is spotted. She, like her husband, lives a hard life in the gray valley. Blue is the sign of being beaten by a hard life. Unlike gray, what is blue is significant. It struggles, but has a sense of life and importance, not displayed by gray.
Brown: The second dress Wilson's wife wears is brown. She wears this dress on the train and to the apartment, trying to transition from living in the gray valley to being Tom's mistress. The dog Tom buys, the one the gray man claims is an Airedale but to Nick is clearly a mutt, is also brown. Brown means trying to pass off as better than you are, plain and simple.
White: White made an appearance in Chapter one in Daisy and Jordan's dresses. Now, white comes in full force. The feet of the dog are white, and two of the guests have white on them. Catherine has a milky white complexion, and Mr. McKee has a white spot on his face from shaving lather. Wilson's wife makes her third change into a cream (off-white) dress. White here means being upper class, or at least trying to be. The dog now belongs to Tom, and will live a privileged little doggie life in Tom's apartment. Catherine and Mr. McKee both act well to do, although Catherine passes it off better. She has been to parties and gone on trips, while Mr. McKee only has a few pictures framed where people can see them, and even then, no one really knows where they are. Nick ends up wiping the white off Mr. McKee in the end. Wilson's wife's dress is pointedly cream, because she is clearly know as Tom's mistress from the gray valley, and thus decidedly not exactly upper class, although she tries to act like she is.
Yellow: Yellow rarely appears in the chapter, and all mentions of it are dispersed. First, there are the yellow glasses that frame the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The building where Wilson's car business is happens to be yellow, and Nick describes the windows in Tom's apartment as yellow. Here, yellow means different from its surroundings. The yellow frames surround the blue eyes, which are different from the gray valley, both in color and meaning. The yellow building, also different from the gray valley, contains the Wilsons who have a relationship not common in most couples (I hope). Finally, the apartment also contains a couple different from most (A man and his mistress).
Clearly, the colors and their meanings play an important role in Nicks observations, and portray important information.
Perhaps yellow is meant to describe the middle-class, or the social not-so-well-to-dos? Yellow itself can be described as a corruption of white - if you streak a white sheet lightly with dirt, it will turn an ugly shade of yellow.
ReplyDeleteYou have the Wilsons, who, as you said, are not at all the normal couple, but they are car mechanics - an occupation not quite as affluent as that of Nick or Daisy. Again, Dr. Eckleburg's glasses are yellow, and he stays inside the drab little valley.
Just a thought - yellow may very well be an unnatural color AND a symbol of the middle-class in The Great Gatsby (who so far have been incredibly unrepresented.).