Blog Topic #5: Personal Review

            The Great Gatsby is another one of those books that start off slow but have a somewhat surprising ending. This book was not one of my favorites. It started off slow for me and I caught myself just reading words and not comprehending at moments. It seemed like nothing was really happening. All the characters did was talk and go visit each other. There was nothing to look forward to and to get excited about. It could get a bit boring. The characters also annoyed me. They all were not happy with who they were with and they didn’t do anything about it. Gatsby and Nick were probably the only characters I did like. Gatsby had a dream, and worked hard to reach it, and Nick seemed to be the only normal character. One thing I did like about this novel was how Fitzgerald wrote it.  It was an easy reader with lots of dialogue and detail. It is easier to picture what the scene was like when there are descriptions and people talking. Out of all the books I have read, I would not recommend this one, nothing exciting really happens. I found it hard to want to pick up the book and read it. The ending was quite thrilling and I am glad I got through it, but the rest of the book was dull and uneventful. 

Blog Topic #4: Text Connections

      The Great Gatsby is very much like the book The Scarlet Letter. This is so because the story is based on peoples relationships, most of them being affairs and ties with married individuals.  Tom Buchanan, a character in The Great Gatsby, is an example of this. Buchanan is married to Nick’s, the narrator’s, cousin. One day, Buchanan brings Nick to introduce him to Mrs. Wilson, his “girl.” Mrs. Wilson is also married. When Mrs. Wilson heard Tom came to visit, she walked “through her husband as if he were a ghost” (Fitzgerald 26). Unlike the Scarlet Letter, this was not a rare thing, and many people had relationships with married people. Yes, it was a horrible thing to do, but people did it anyway. This was a significant part of the book because the main character, Gatsby, just wants to be with Daisy, a married woman, who in the end is not able to be with her. Gatsby is killed, and that is because of another relationship. The whole novel is about different relationships, and Gatsby is not able to be with his love, just like in the Scarlet Letter, where the main character, Hester, is not able to be with hers. 

Blog Topic #3: Syntax

·      “And as I walked on I was lonely no longer” (Fitzgerald 4).

Nick just moved to West Egg, where it was lonely at first, and he didn’t feel like he was at home. One day, as he was walking, a man stopped to ask him a question. Finally, at that moment, Nick felt like he belonged, and now he was settled. Nick felt that it was the beginning of a new life. Instead of saying, “I was no longer lonely,” Fitzgerald, says, “I was lonely no longer.” This inverted word order really jumps out to the reader. Nick is reassuring himself that he is not lonely anymore. He is part of the West Egg. This section was cheerful, and as the reader you feel relieved that Nick finally can call his community home.

·      “Daisy went up-stairs to wash her face—too late I thought with humiliation of my towels—while Gatsby and I waited on the lawn” (Fitzgerald 89).

Fitzgerald uses dashes to set off an abrupt but humorous change of thought. The fact that the Narrator throws in a comment about his towels is rather funny. It makes the mood light and buoyant when the situation could actually be somewhat stressful. It is the first time Daisy is going over to Gatsby’s house, and she wants to look the best she can. Also, Gatsby has been waiting for this moment for over five years. It is a huge point in the story because Daisy and Gatsby are finally letting each other in one another’s lives. Daisy is entering Gatsby’s house where all of his stories and personal possessions are.

·      “He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that…(Fitzgerald 98).

One of Fitzgerald’s purposes was to prove that Gatsby was a wonderful man with only good intentions. He was just another man with a dream who was not able to fulfill all of it. The use of dashes describes what an all around great person Gatsby was. Gatsby was a great friend, a caring person, and had a huge mansion with many valuable possessions, which he was willing to share. He opened and welcomed his house to anyone. He was the “perfect” man, a “son of God.”

Blog Topic #2: Diction

·      When explaining Gatsby and Daisy together, Fitzgerald uses gentle but joyful diction to create a warming and euphoric tone. Finally, after five years, Gatsby and daisy get to see each other. When describing this scene, Fitzgerald uses words like “fluctuating” and “feverish warmth.” These words give off a lighthearted and innocent feel. The two can’t keep their hands off each other; they are just so thrilled to be together at last. As the reader, you feel happy for Gatsby and Daisy that they were finally able to come together.

·      There is something about the character Jordan Baker that gives off a mysterious and a bit of a sneaky impression. Fitzgerald writes that Baker “dealt in universal skepticism” (79). Also, later in the section, Baker gave a “scornful” smile as they were in the “barrier of dark trees” (80). Is this foreshadowing an event that is going to occur? Maybe or maybe not, but the use of these words makes the reader a bit curious. Usually, when the author uses these mystifying and darker types of words, he is giving a signal for a future event that may not turn out to be very pleasant. The tone of Fitzgerald when talking about Jordan Baker in this section of the novel was quite evasive and questionable.

Blog Topic #1: Rhetorical Strategies

• Repetition: “…stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of Indian blue” (Fitzgerald 92).
• Simile: “I cam into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner, and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress and as drunk as a monkey” (Fitzgerald 76).
• Personification: “Only wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go on and off and on again as if the house had winked into the darkness” (Fitzgerald 81).
• Allusion: ‘“but I lost most of it in the big panic—the panic of the war”’ (Fitzgerald 90).
• Alliteration: “The name sounded faintly familiar” (Fitzgerald 93).
• Onomatopoeia: “jug-jug-spat!” (Fitzgerald 68).

In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald showed his simple but detailed style of writing through the use of a few rhetorical devices. Fitzgerald didn’t use a huge variety of stylistic and extravagant word choice or sentence types, but he was able to illustrate his point through imagery and details with a few strategies to support those ideas.  His rhetorical devices flowed with the descriptions of the images and the use of these strategies seemed to be effortless. The narrator, Nick, is telling the stories that really happened during his lifetime. When he is describing the images of events, he uses simple language so the readers can get the best conception of the plot. Fitzgerald is so specific when telling each occasion so that his audience is able to vision what really happened as if they were almost there. An example of this is when he used an onomatopoeia when explaining the sound of a motorcycle, “Jug-jug-spat” (Fitzgerald 68). The readers are able to imagine exactly what the sounds were in that situation.