Personal Review

    For me, The Great Gatsby was an interesting read. It was very easy for me to fall in love with Gatsby, the man who achieved perfection in everything except what he desired most. Although he as much fame and money that he could ever want, there was something that was missing, and that was Daisy. In my opinion, Daisy, although she is seemingly charming in every way, was the character I was most disappointed in at the end of the novel. Daisy was only a tool to her husband Tom. She was an item of status that everybody recognized and easily became infatuated with. However, the whole town also knew of Tom’s affair, and Daisy would just try to brush it off and ignore it. I wish she would have stood up for herself a little bit, though, in hindsight, Tom might have caused her harm had she dared to speak up against him. The only time we truly see Daisy happy and carefree was when she was with Gatsby, and when he dies, she does not even attend his funeral. Maybe it was because she was trying to patch things up with Tom, or maybe it was because she did not want to believe that the only source of her true happiness was dead. Another character that I really connected with was Nick. He is just a simple guy trying to make a name for himself in this world, and I think everyone can relate to him on some level. He got sucked into all the drama that was not his, and yet he did not run away from it, rather, he stayed in it because he was intrigued by the characters involved. He was intrigued with Gatsby’s circumstances, so he remained a close friend to learn the true story of this interesting man. He was intrigued with Daisy and her welfare, so he stayed to see if Gatsby would make her happy. In the end though, he is left alone to make his own decisions and continue on to create his story. I think I enjoyed the book more the second time reading it, because when I first read the Great Gatsby, I was not really paying attention. I got the gist of the novel, then moved on. This time, when I read into the book more, I found the story much more likeable and relatable to my own life. This novel makes a heavy statement about the lies and deception behind high society that I thought was very intriguing.

Text Connections

    The novel The Great Gatsby contains many text connections to the world. Although this is a piece of fiction, the book outlines what would have really happened in the high society of the 1920’s, and is still very relevant to circumstances that would occur in this time period as well. Living in southern California, it is easy to connect to Nick’s circumstances of having “a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires,”(5). But Nick’s circumstances before he moved out were “a country of wide lawns and friendly trees,”(3). I can very easily relate to this, having moved from Missouri to a southern California suburb where I am able to see the backyards of 4 people from the comfort of my room. It seems that in this day in age, society yearns for perfection. Fitzgerald creates this text-to-world connection by stating that, “I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the ‘well-rounded man’”(4). In high school, the “perfect” student is one that not only has spectacular grades in all subjects, but also participates in sports and other student activities. This “well-rounded man” is what all students and people must strive to be in order to achieve what society determines as “success”.

Syntax

    Within the novel, The Great Gastby,  author F. Scott Fitzgerald artfully weaves syntax throughout the novel to affect the style and tone in a passage. For example, when narrator Nick Carraway is describing the two eggs, he says that “They are not perfect ovals-like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end-but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead,”(5). Fitzgerald commonly uses dashes in order to help further describe the imagery that he is creating. In order to eloquently paint the picture of the two eggs and the considerable difference in society between the two, dashes and other noted forms of syntax are necessary. Fitzgerald continues with the use of dashes in the next paragraph by stating, “I lived at West Egg the- well, the less fashionable of the two,”(5). Again, the dashes aid in the explanation of these two different towns. However, this syntax also creates a tone of familiarity in that the author connects with the narrator. They both share the experience of living in the “less fashionable” districts, and so this sentence really allows the audience to connect with the concept of having highs and lows in life. Later in the novel, after the party at Gatsby’s house that Daisy and Tom attended, Nick is whether or not to accept the invitation of dinner at Daisy’s house. As he is wondering, “Half an hour later Daisy herself telephoned and seemed relieved to find that I was coming. Something was up. And yet I couldn’t believe that they would choose this occasion for a scene,”(114). In this statement, Fitzgerald uses varying sentence sizes to catch the attention of the reader, and emphasize that a pivotal moment was soon to occur. He starts off with his usual use of long sentences, followed by the short, simple sentence “something was up”. The sudden shortness of the statement catches the audience off guard, and causes them to pay close attention to the foreshadowing of the sentence.

Diction

    The diction employed in the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is very high, and the tone that the diction creates is different for every character he discusses. When Gatsby discusses Gatsby, the diction creates a tone of affectionate admiration. In his very first description of Gatsby, the narrator, Nick Carraway, states that, “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away,”(4). By using words such as “successful” and “gorgeous” it is obvious that he feels a special affection for Gatsby not only as a person, but as one of his only real friends. Throughout the novel, Gatsby is one of the only people who is truly honest to Nick, and in that society honesty goes a long way. The next character that Carraway meets in the novel is Tom Buchanen. He claims that Tom has, “Two shining arrogant eyes [that] had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward,”(7). Whenever Carraway describes Tom, it is apparent that he feels some sort of apprehension to Tom’s character. Most of the diction used has a negative connotation, like “arrogant”, “dominance”, or “aggressively”. By Tom’s appearance and stature, Nick has reason to be suspicious of his character, as Tom is the type to always want more in life and beat down anyone in his way. Finally, when Carraway meets Daisy again for the first time in years, he states that “She leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression- then she laughed an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room,”(8). Daisy, as a character, has a certain way of intriguing and drawing people around her, as seen prior. Nick is no exception. Although Nick feels that he and Daisy are almost strangers, it is almost as if gravity pulled them together to share that one little laugh. By referring to her laugh as “absurd” and “charming”, a tone of infatuation is created. Much like Nick, the readers become infatuated with Daisy’s character because of this tone, along with the other characters previously mentioned. Diction play a very important role in this novel, as it sets up the tone for the audience to interact with the characters and truly make this novel great.

Rhetorical Strategies

Hyperbole: “He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month,”(3).
Allusion: “Promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew,”(4).
Antithesis: “And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all,”(6).
    Throughout the novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author employs many different forms of rhetorical strategies to color the language, and critically analyze the downfalls of high society during the Roarin’ 20’s. At the beginning of the novel, the author describes the state of the house his friend had found for them to live in with a hyperbole in order to emphasize the contrast between his little “bungalow” squeezed in between two rather more expensive mansions. With this description the author creates an almost comical imagery of a tiny house squeezed between the houses of millionaires. It could be construed that because such homes with a difference in price point are stuck in such close proximity to each other, it symbolizes how not only the rich, but also the poor can suffer from the lies and drama started by high society. Next, the author alludes to such figures as King Midas, Morgan, and Maecenas, to exemplify the mindset of individuals during the 1920’s. Those figures that are famous for being rich were common idols for people. Everyone was trying to be richer, whether it be monetary richness, or being rich with love and admiration. In many cases, like Gatsby, this search for more could lead to their eventual downfall. Finally, the antithesis Fitzgerald creates about the “old friends that I scarcely knew at all” truly epitomizes the high society of the 1920’s. People that lived together in that great society all hardly knew each other. Daisy barely knows Tom, Nick barely knows Jordan, and Tom barely knows Gatsby. These individuals thrive off of lies and misconceptions about each other, living in a blissful state of unawareness. Once that state is lifted, all of the lies fall apart right on top of everyone’s heads.