Cars as a Symbol in The Great Gatsby Essay -- Fitzgerald Great Gatsby

Cars as a Symbol in The Great Gatsby Cars play a very important part in the telling of The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is a very dark, unhappy book, and the cars really exemplify this. "à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦cars change their meaning and become a symbol of death" (Dexheimer). Cars also give the reader insight into some of the different characters in the book. One of the most important jobs of cars in this book is to foreshadow upcoming events. Throughout the book, there are many devastating and dark events that these cars represent. A line from the book that really drives this home is, "So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight" (Fitzgerald 143). Fitzgerald deliberately chose to put the words drove, implying cars, and death, together. This is an idea that appears many times. The dead man went An incidence of this is when Nick and Gatsby are driving over the Queensboro Bridge on their way to the valley of ashes. This paragraph in the book is very dark, and it helps set the awful mood for the rest of the book. A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages for friends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and short upper lips of south-eastern Europe and I was glad the sight of Gatsby's splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As we crossed Black Wells Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. I laughed aloud as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled towards us in haughty rivalry. (Fitzgerald 73) On this bridge, any number of different types of cars could have driven by, but a hearse and a black limousine were chosen to help .. ...ruption in the novel" (Symbolism in The Great Gatsby). "Instead of being a 'rich cream color,' a witness is quoted saying 'It was a yellow car,' implying that the dream is dead" (Swygert). In the East Daisy becomes corrupt, and the color change is the way that the reader is shown this change in her, and the death of Gatsby's dream of marrying Daisy. As I have shown, cars play a very important part in helping portray the darkness in The Great Gatsby. The cars symbolize the death and despair of the story and help to characterize some of the main characters. Works Cited Dexheimer, Melissa, Lauren Locke and Mosang Miles. "Student Led Seminar Presentation and Summary". Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Swygert, Shavaun. "Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby". 1 June 1998. "Symbolism in The Great Gatsby".