Gatsby Figurative Language Analysis

Many of the people in the world regard The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, one of the greatest literary classics of all time. However there is always at least one, most the time few and far between, that disagrees with this statement. H. L. Mencken is one of these persons. After reading the novel Mencken writes an excerpt to be published in the magazine Evening Sun, after all he is one of the leading literary critics of his time. In this essay we will discover how Mencken uses rhetorical devices to portray his thoughts of the novel, The Great Gatsby.

The “curtains” have human-like qualities, for they are making “whip and snap” sounds. Also, the “picture” has human-like qualities of “groan.” Fitzgerald adds these sounds to show the awkwardness setting in the Buchanan’s house. Just walking in the hallway of Tom Buchanan made Nick feel unease; it was so quiet that Nick can hear the cry of a picture and the lash of the curtain moving.

As the narrator, the audience gets a deep insight into how Nick feels about Gatsby. Nick views Gatsby as an admirable figure, and thinks that Gatsby’s capacity to dream makes him “great.” Nick illustrates how, “...Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island sprang from his platonic conception of himself. He was a Son of God. A phrase which means anything means just that.” Plato was a Greek philosopher who created the idealism that every person aspires to some perfect or vastly superior form of itself. Therefore, when Nick refers to “platonic conception,” he is describing how Gatsby created himself based on envisions of his fondest dreams. Born into a poor farming family in North Dakota James Gatz always had a dream to belong in the upper class of

The past is an idea that develops memories, while also establishing goals for the future. A past molds one’s personality into its unique form, which lasts a lifetime. Thus, it holds an essential role in creating the goals humans possess. In The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald bestows a lost, romantic past on Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald uses the character of Nick Carraway to enhance the overarching theme of his novel: “the past can not be repeated”.

In the film of The Great Gatsby, based on the novel, Director, Baz Luhrmann shares the elaborate tale of the infamous Jay Gatsby. Taking place in the era of the 1920’s, also known as the roaring twenties, Luhrmann is able to bring the film to life by constructing breathtaking scenery creating a glamorous environment full of ecstasy in order to make the modern day audience get a feel for what life in that time period would have been like today. Though the story is about the main character, Jay Gatsby desperately trying to rekindle the spark he once had with his past love Daisy, Luhrmann infers that this is more than just another film about hopeless love. Throughout the film Luhrmann there is much evidence that reveal the overall theme of the story. Through the overdramatic characters, who seem oblivious to consequences of their actions, as well as the events that take place toward the end of the film, Luhrmann looks to show the audience the destructiveness of money, wealth, and the American Dream. As the film concludes, the narrator, Nick Caraway, solidifies that the purpose of telling the story of The Great Gatsby is to reveal how hopes of achieving the American Dream can corrupt and degrade the human spirit.

F Scott Fitzgerald used a powerful choice of words for his book "The Great Gatsby."

Within the book, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, describes the dream of Jay Gatsby being destroyed. The speaker in the text is Nick Carraway, who narrates the events that occur and describes the events with elaborate detail. Nick directs his message to the adults amongst the readers. Purposely, Nick writes narrates the text in order to indicate to the readers that dreams will never become true. Also, the message of the book is to communicate that dreaming will not accomplish the goals set in life. During the novel, the tone that was used indicated regret and depression from the speaker and the characters such as Gatsby. Nick utilizes the rhetorical strategies symbolism, diction and tone to describe how the American Dream cannot be achieved.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, portrays the life of a man who is truly focused on one dream: to reclaim the love of his life. Fitzgerald illustrates the problem of being so single-minded through Gatsby’s ultimate demise. His slow evolution and reveal of the character of Gatsby leads to a devastating climax once his dream fails. Fitzgerald uses extended metaphor and sharp diction to depict Gatsby’s crumbling life in his last moments.

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, employs different types of figurative language to construct representations of the motifs and to help enhance them. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote novels and short stories during the Jazz Age in American History. He had led a tough life and gone through two relationships prior to his wife, Zelda. Both Zelda and Fitzgerald started falling apart when they turned to drinking and partying and eventually, she was admitted to an insane asylum. Shortly after, he decided to write, The Great Gatsby, which was staged around his life.

The first few pages of the third chapter of The Great Gatsby are a good example of the book’s rhetorical style. In these pages, Fitzgerald strategically includes intricate details using rhetorical tools such as figurative language and extensive imagery in order to create vivid images in the mind of the reader. Syntactically, the use of polysyndeton and use of conjunctions allow Fitzgerald to paint a picture through several decisive snapshots, portraying the scene using a carefree, almost unreal tone. Fitzgerald’s strong imagery and long, intricate sentence structure work together to develop a characteristically descriptive style. When introducing Gatsby’s parties, Fitzgerald uses imagery and figurative language as his primary tools to fully

Oftentimes society gets so caught up in achieving greatness that it is blinded to the obstacles of reality. The American Dream can sometimes be so unachievable yet so alluring that people cannot help but strive after it as if it were their destiny. Fitzgerald highlights this phenomenon in his novel The Great Gatsby through many characters and their pursuit of their own American Dreams. Fitzgerald uses figurative language and contrasting diction to show his cynical attitude about the pursuit of the American Dream and the blindness of those who believe in it.

In the book “The Great Gatsby” The Author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses many different types of figurative language techniques to make the world of which he wrote feel more real to the reading audience. In chapter 3 of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes Alliteration and Imagery to illustrate how the world he created looks and feels. One of the first types of figurative language that was used in the book was alliteration. Fitzgerald used alliteration to make words and sentences more powerful to the reader. One of these examples of alliteration the author uses is ''the ghastly gray cars driving down the road”.

We are guided through the first half of the extract by Nick as a third

Victimization, which represents the destiny of Gatsby in the book, is suggested by the literature figurative language simile and symbol. Following the text, it demonstrates that Tom plays an antagonist with Gatsby. This passage is a part of Nick’s narrate after Nick knows that the truth is Daisy drives the car and kills Myrtle. Firstly, using the “glass” represent Jay Gatsby. Tom such as a big monster with the hard shell, and Gatsby is a weakness person. He can kill him easily. There are two main reasons why Tom dislikes Gatsby. A reason is Tom’s family is rich from generation to generation, and he is very pound and rough. He dislikes the person who was an overnight millionaire because, in his opinion, the overnight millionaires don’t have

#1 The translations by Murray and Fitzgerald are similar in main story points and the general events which took place. The texts, however, differ greatly in terms of word choice as well some specific translation differences. For example, Fitzgerald spells the word Kyklopes which is shown to be the transliteration of the greek word Κυκλωπες(KYKLOPES,1). Murray, on the other hand, spells it Cyclopes which has him adhering to the Latin spelling of the word. Here we see that even though Murray's translation in older it does not use the technically more accurate word, and we see that, despite it being a much more readable translation, Fitzgerald's spelling of the word adheres more closely to the original Greek. It would make sense that Fitzgerald's version is the more easily digestible one as it was written later.