Figure of Speech
Commentary
Simile
“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”
Metaphor
My own house was an eyesore
Alliteration
Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body
Hyperbole
“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness”
Personification
The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door
Imagery
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees”
Simile
“the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe”
Imagery
Choose two images which particularly appeal to you and help you to imagine this scene in your mind. Explain how Fitzgerald creates
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Meyer Wolfsheim, a predator from the underworld who wears a man's molars as cufflinks, is a character who preys upon others. He is a insensitive, subhuman criminal, modeled upon the real-life gangster who fixed the 1919 World Series. The latter part of his name denotes that he is a Jew as Fitzgerald states; at the time of the novel, Jews were stereotyped as unconscionable dealers in money who had little sense of honor in their relationships.
Syntax
Note the polysyndeton in the last sentence. The repeated “and’s” simulate the wind dying down, as objects slowly settle in the room. This device creates the sense that the time it took for everything to settle back down and deflate after Tom shut the window was drawn out and long.
Now look at another syntactical pattern Fitzgerald uses—loose/cumulative sentences. This passage contains no periodic sentences, which develop a sense of tension as the reader waits for the main idea, the independent clause, by the period, at the end of the sentence. Every sentence in this passage is loose/cumulative, except for the last sentence which is a series of balanced independent
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Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body. His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
How does Fitzgerald characterize Tom Buchanan?
In the first chapter of The Great Gatsby, readers get a good overview of this character: He is the husband of Daisy, the object of Jay Gatsby's desire. He is wealthy, and he likes to flaunt it: His family were enormously wealthy and even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach
Look at how Fitzgerald uses syntax.
Note the type of sentences he tends to write (simple, compound, complex,
As a young man, Jay Gatsby was poor with nothing but his love for Daisy. He had attempted to woe her, but a stronger attraction to money led her to marry another man. This did not stop Gatsby’s goal of winning this woman for himself though, and he decided to improve his life anyway he could until he could measure up to Daisy’s standards. He eventually gained connections in what would seem to be the wrong places, but these gave him the opportunity he needed to "get rich quick." Gatsby’s enormous desire for Daisy controlled his life to the point that he did not even question the immorality of the dealings that he involved himself in to acquire wealth. Eventually though, he was able to afford a "castle" in a location where he could pursue Daisy effectively. His life ambition had successfully moved him to the top of the "new money" class of society, but he lacked the education of how to promote his wealth properly. Despite the way that Gatsby flaunted his money, he did catch Daisy’s attention. A chaotic affair followed for a while until Daisy was overcome by pressures from Gatsby to leave her husband and by the realization that she belonged to "old money" and a more proper society.
In the third sentence, note the metaphor and explain Fitzgerald’s choice of this particular metaphor.
Initially, Gatsby stirs up sympathetic feelings because of his obsession with wealth. Ever since meeting Dan Cody, his fascination for wealth has increased dramatically. He even uses illegal unmoral methods to obtain hefty amounts of wealth to spend on buying a house with “ Marie Antoinette music-rooms, Restoration Salons, dressing rooms and poolrooms, and bath rooms with sunken baths.” (88) His wardrobe is just as sensational with “ shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine fennel.” (89) Gatsby buys such posh items to impress Daisy but to him, Daisy herself is a symbol of wealth. Jay remarks, “[Daisy’s] voice is full of money.” (115). For him, Daisy is the one who is “ High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden gir...
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Chambers, John B. The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. London: Macmillan/New York: St Martin's P, 1989.
Gidmark, Jill B. “F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Cycolpedia Of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition (2003): 1-2. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
The Jazz age was a time of glamour, sparkle, parties, music, the extreme rich, the extreme poor, and the exultation of lawlessness; F. Scoot Fitzgerald was no exception. Fitzgerald was enamored by the life of money, status, and beautiful people on a hopeless spiral into self destruction. The moral decadence of America became a prevailing theme in the works of Fitzgerald, taking birth fully within The Great Gatsby.
Through his remarkable use of techniques and style, Fitzgerald has created a realistic construction of his experience of the 1920s which is also heavily shaped by the present-day responder’s own beliefs and practices.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985.
Fitzgerald's book at first overwhelms the reader with poetic descriptions of human feelings, of landscapes, buildings and colors. Everything seems to have a symbolic meaning, but it seems to be so strong that no one really tries to look what's happening behind those beautiful words. If you dig deeper you will discover that hidden beneath those near-lyrics are blatancies, at best.
Gatsby is a very rich young man who lives in the West egg and always throws big huge expensive parties. Gatsby is the main character of the story. Gatsby only cares about having Daisy and having money and material things. In the book Gatsby how Daisy his beautiful shirts Daisy cries of how beautiful they are she states that she has not seen nothing more beautiful than that ¨There are such beautiful shirts,¨ she sobbed, ¨It makes me sad because I've never seen such- such beautiful shirts before” (Great Gatsby 92).
This passage shows Nick making his way through New York at night, seeing the sights and narrating the way this external stimuli makes him feel. It exemplifies the manner in which Nick interacts with the world around him, often as an observer, rather than participant, and is integral to the development of his character. Fitzgerald utilizes vivid imagery throughout the paragraph, paired with a strong narrative regarding Nick’s experience in New York; furthermore provoking the audience to ponder a theme central to the novel.
There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motorboats slit the water of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight. (Fitzgerald 39)
This is a very unique example because this example includes two similes; these similes help the reader obtain a metaphorical image of Amory and the fact that he has had way too much to drink at the party. Amory has two main loves in his life. Again Fitzgerald uses the unique way of having two similes in The Love of the Last Tycoon. “Under the moon the back lot was…like the torn picture books of childhood, like fragments of stories dancing in an open fire” (Hendrickson’s, Styles Par 3). These similes are important because it portrays that Hollywood to Stahr was no different than childhood because during her childhood she had the ability to create magic in her films and now the only difference is that she creating that magic in Hollywood (Hendrickson’s, Styles
F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most compelling twentieth century writers, (Curnutt, 2004). The year 1925 marks the year of the publication of Fitzgerald’s most credited novel, The Great Gatsby (Bruccoli, 1985). With its critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream (Berman, 1996), this dramatic idyllic novel, (Harvey, 1957), although poorly received at first, is now highly regarded as Fitzgerald’s finest work (Rohrkemper, 1985) and is his publisher, Scribner 's most popular title, (Donahue, 2013). The novel achieved it’s status as one of the most influential novels in American history around the nineteen fifties and sixties, over ten years after Fitzgerald 's passing, (Ibid, 1985)