The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, though not one of my favorite novels, will definitely hold a significant place in my memory. I greatly appreciated the relative simplicity of the text; however, I found it deceitfully basic. Although it was extremely entertaining and fun to read, the fact that it was so undemanding tricked me into overlooking much of the significant content. I often found myself wondering why the author included so many irrelevant details, not realizing that each of these seemingly pointless particulars held immense weight. This proved true while I was reading the portions about Gatsby knocking over the clock, which revealed itself to being symbolic of Gatsby’s relationship with time, and Myrtle needing to buy a dog leash, which became the tip that alerted her husband of her affair. However, once I realized my mistake of skimming over the details, I was able to appreciate the incredible significance that this book has. Through its tragic storyline and almost soap-opera-like dramatics, Fitzgerald is able to expose the usually romanticized life of the rich for what it really is: empty, lonely, and unrelenting in its monotony and deceitfulness. The lessons that the author teaches hold true in nearly every circumstance. Money is not the key to happiness, living in the past will only cause disappointment, and one should love another for their personality rather than their money and status. These lessons, among others, will stay with me as I make my way through life. In addition to appreciating the lessons that I learned, I found reading about this time period in general incredibly interesting, as the common way of thinking at this time is extremely different from our ideas today. However, one of the topics in this novel that still does hold true was the one that caught my attention the most. In everyday life, whether in small portions or large, the concept of hypocrisy constantly presents itself. By touching on this concept and showing how it affects others, I feel that the author did a fantastic job at realistically portraying the relationships between people and their peers, making the novel extremely believable and making its impact that much more powerful. All in all, I enjoyed this novel very much, and will continue to appreciate it for years to come.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Rhetorical Strategies
· Simile: “For a moment the sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk” (14).
· Personification: “A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight” (43).’
· Metaphor: “sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town” (64).
· Polysyndeton: “I was sure he’d start when he saw the newspapers, just as I was sure there’d be a wire from Daisy before noon—but neither wire nor Mr. Wolfsheim arrived; no one arrived except more police and photographers and newspaper men” (165).
· Imagery: “I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby’s bedroom, a gray, florid man with a hard, empty face—the pioneer debauchee, who during one phase of American life brought back to the Eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon” (100).
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald writes with an extremely simplistic yet impeccably relevant style. Through his use of rhetorical strategies, he weaves meaning into the simplest of statements, making the novel both easy to read and intriguing to think about. His use of imagery, personification, and metaphor creates a feeling of living through the novel, allowing the reader to see the stern mask on the face of Gatsby’s creator, experience the feeling of floating through one of Gatsby’s extravagant parties in a blur as the world floats by, and feel as though they are sitting in the lavish luxury of Gatsby’s boat of a car. In addition to this, the author’s effective employment of simile allows the reader to not only to see the events occurring, but characterize the people in the novel according to how things such as nature react with them, giving the reader an omniscient sort of feeling. Through the use of polysyndeton, Fitzgerald creates an overwhelming feeling without overwhelming the reader with convoluted sentences and overly loquacious words. This skill allows the reader to clearly understand the text and aids the author in the presentation of his ideas. Through his lucid and comprehensible writing, Fitzgerald creates an entertaining and highly pertinent story.
Syntax
· “When he had gone halfway he turned around and stared at the scene—his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid, and the despairing figure on the couch, bleeding fluently, and trying to spread a copy of Town Tattle over the tapestry scenes of Versailles” (37).
Fitzgerald uses the structure of this sentence to mirror the actions of the character being described. In order to portray the pause in the man’s actions as he absorbs all that is occurring around him, the author utilizes a dash, effectively causing a break in the reader’s thought process. This generates a rift in the fluidity of the sentence, causing the reader to feel as if they are frozen in time as they absorb the details of the mayhem that occurs in the scene. In addition to this, Fitzgerald utilizes a convoluted cumulative sentence in order to parallel the chaos which is taking place in this scene. By doing this, the nature of the party is emphasized since the subordinate clauses which are seemingly tacked onto the end of the sentence create a rushed feeling, as if the occurrences being described have spun out of control. This situation acts as an ominous foreshadowing, forewarning the reader that the lives of all of the rich are doomed to spiral into turmoil.
· “I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: ‘I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me and I’ll get somebody for you—‘” (164).
Nick’s stark determination while voicing this statement is emphasized by the
author’s employment of parallelism, simple sentences, and repetition. The utilization of parallelism in the first two statements causes the reader to see that Nick is so rattled at this point in the novel that he can only form thoughts in a generic and formulaic way. This state of mind becomes even more apparent as the sentences become even shorter and simplistic. The repetition of the phrases “I wanted to” and “I’ll get somebody for you” displays the collapse of all rational thought within the narrator until the only things that Nick can express are childlike promises and desires. The combination of each of these elements works to display the deteriorating effect that Nick’s close proximity to wealth and the wealthy has had on him.
· “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 tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns” (64).
The blunt nature of the opening statements in this quote hints at a tone infused
with both jealousy and disgust at the garishly showy automobile that Gatsby owns. By using a lengthy, loose sentence to describe Gatsby’s car, the author fully emphasizes the intricacies and grandeur of the vehicle, as it becomes increasingly apparent that the sentence, much like the car, is piled with phrases that become progressively more unnecessary and gaudy. In addition to this, the polysyndeton encompassed within this sentence adds even more to its emphasis on the multiple trinkets within Gatsby’s car. The placement of this long, elaborate sentence, when positioned next to two short ones, makes the short sentences appear small and weak in comparison. This mirrors the fact that Nick, and everybody who has seen the car for that matter, feels small and meek when placed in front of the extravagant persona that is Gatsby.
Text Connection (text-to-text)
The Great Gatsby is a novel about the empty and fruitless nature of wealth and high society. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is descended from a wealthy family, yet chooses to live a life of moderate privilege; however, he is constantly surrounded by rich and powerful people of both old money legacies and new money beginnings. Throughout the text, the author eludes to the false and dishonest nature of the privileged class. This concept is especially prevalent in Nick’s narration: “The instant her voice broke off ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said” (17). Nick finds himself bogged down in a marsh of artificial and inherently false people and soon finds that he has “had enough of them” (142). This situation is highly relatable to that of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye since Holden finds himself perpetually stuck in a world of “phonies.” At the beginning of The Great Gatsby, Nick proclaims himself “inclined to reserve all judgments,” unlike the bulk of his acquaintances, casting himself as a benevolent and truthful person in the midst of other dishonest characters. Holden’s situation is starkly similar since, in his eyes, he is the only truthful person to walk the plant. In both of these novels, the narrator struggles to overcome the fraudulent nature of the surrounding people in order to tell the story of their experiences as truthfully as they can.
How Diction Creates Tone
Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the party atmosphere at Gatsby’s house and the corresponding wealthy people who endow it are infused with bitterly sarcastic and biting language. The author writes that there are “old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other torturously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners—and a great number of single girls dancing individualistically or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps” (46). The author’s skillful juxtaposition of words such as “pushing” and “torturously” with the words “superior” and “fashionably” effectively displays to the reader the insipid façade which is so important to the upper class. This becomes apparent as the words “pushing” and “torturously” suggest a rigidity of stature and a strained demeanor in the persons whom they are describing, since these words are closely tied to invocations of forced actions, unhappy occurrences, and painful obligations. The coupling of this image with the thought of the “superior” class acting this way works to summon the idea that the sole concern of the pedigree class is to appear better than everybody else, although in order to uphold this illusion, they must submit themselves to circumstances that they loath. This suggestion creates a bitter edge to Fitzgerald’s words, which are meant to warn the reader of the atrocities of the rich. Later, the author describes the “bizarre accusations that flavored conversation in [Gatsby’s] halls” (65). Through the use of the word “flavored” in this statement, Fitzgerald proposes that the halls in question are, in the absence of such conversation, relatively bland, as the word “flavored” suggests adding excitement or variety to an otherwise desolate situation or place. This proposition eludes the empty and false nature of the people who attend Gatsby’s parties, as the only things that create excitement are rumors of Gatsby and not the personality of the attendees. By continually using sneering, sarcastic, and bitter language while describing the rich throughout the novel, it becomes obvious that Fitzgerald regards these people with scorn and contempt.
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