The Great Gatsby Symbolism Project by Olivia Cox

oliviacox1204 — 2025-09-17 16:20:12 UTC

The symbol I chose is Gatsby's Yellow Car. It symbolizes a lot in the book in so many different ways, mostly representing old money and wealth. Gatsby uses the yellow car to impress Daisy and gain acceptance in the upper class. In the end, it ultimately leads to corruption, moral decay, and death. The color of the car draws attention, but shows the lack of true class. The car also leads to the death of Myrtle Wilson. This is the cause of Gatsby's death directly after. This all started with Gatsby wanting to fit in with the upper class citizens, but ended up ending his life unable to live his American Dream.

oliviacox1204 — 2025-09-18 15:58:32 UTC

"It was a rich cream color, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and super-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns" (Fitzgerald page 64).

This quote from "The Great Gatsby" references what the yellow car looked like, and it looked big, bulky, and it was glimmering. This shows the high quality of Gatsby, and how he is trying to show off his money to seek attention from others.

oliviacox1204 — 2025-09-18 16:20:11 UTC

"'Listen,' said Tom, shaking him a little. 'I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coupé we've been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn't mine--do you hear? I haven't seen it all afternoon.'" (Fitzgerald page 140).

This quote shows how even though the yellow car is pretty and high quality, it has a dark meaning behind it and caused many deaths. This demonstrates that something that seems harmless in the book can actually cause a lot of conflict.

oliviacox1204 — 2025-09-18 16:32:05 UTC

"About three o'clock the quality of Wilson's incoherent muttering changed--he grew quieter and began to talk about the yellow car. He announced that he had a way to finding out whom the yellow car belonged to, and then he blurted out that a couple months ago his wife had come from the city with her face bruised and her nose swollen." (Fitzgerald page 156-157).

This quote shows the after effects of what happened before, which was death, and Mr. Wilson ended up connecting the dots, figuring out Myrtle cheated on him. This shows the dark, twisted side of the book, showing that it's not all happiness when someone has money.

oliviacox1204 — 2025-09-18 19:28:25 UTC

"'I'm a friend of his.' Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson's body. 'He says he knows the car that did it... It was a yellow car.' Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom. 'And what color is your car?' 'It's a blue car, a coupe.' (Fitzgerald, page 140).

This shows further that the yellow car leads to destruction and deception, and this shows Tom trying to assert authority over Gatsby with the car and shift the murder of Myrtle on to Gatsby, leaving Tom to get out of trouble. This shows how Tom only cares about himself and his status, trying to be better than others.