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

Cars as a Symbol in The Great GatsbyCars play a very important part in the telling of The Great Gatsby.The Great Gatsby is a very dark, unhappy accommodate, and the cars reallyexemplify this. cars change their meaning and arrest a symbol ofdeath (Dexheimer). Cars also give the reader insight into some of thedifferent characters in the book.One of the most important jobs of cars in this book is to foreshadowupcoming events. Throughout the book, there be many devastating anddark events that these cars represent. A line from the book thatreally drives this home is, So we set on toward death through thecooling twilight (Fitzgerald 143). Fitzgerald deliberately chose toput the words drove, implying cars, and death, together. This is anidea that appears many times. The dead man wentAn incidence of this is when Nick and Gatsby are driving over theQueensboro Bridge on their way to the valley of ashes. This paragraphin the book is very dark, and it helps set the awful mood for the restof the book.A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by twocarriages with drawn blinds and by more cheerful carriages forfriends. The friends looked out at us with the tragic eyes and shortupper lips of south-eastern Europe and I was glad the sight ofGatsbys splendid car was included in their somber holiday. As wecrossed raw Wells Island a limousine passed us, driven by a whitechauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl. Ilaughed loudly as the yolks of their eyeballs rolled towards us inhaughty rivalry. (Fitzgerald 73)On this bridge, any number of different types of cars could havedriven by, but a hearse and a stark limousine were chosen to help... ...ruption in thenovel (Symbolism in The Great Gatsby). Instead of being a richcream color, a witness is quoted saying It was a yellow car,implying that the dream is dead (Swygert). In the East Daisy becomescorrupt, and the color change is the way that the reader is shown thischange in her, and the death of Gatsbys dream of marrying Daisy.As I have shown, cars play a very important part in helping portraythe darkness in The Great Gatsby. The cars symbolize the death and despondency of the story and help to characterize some of the maincharacters.Works CitedDexheimer, Melissa, Lauren Locke and Mosang Miles. Student LedSeminar Presentation and Summary.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York Simon & Schuster,1995.Swygert, Shavaun. Color Symbolism in The Great Gatsby. 1 June1998.Symbolism in The Great Gatsby.