Blog Topic #1: Rhetorical Strategies

·         Alliteration: "romantic readiness" (6).

·         Repetition: "old sport" (52).

·         Oxymoron: "jovial condescension" (54).

·         Simile: "At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete" (Fitzgerald 117).

·         Personification: "From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air" (139).

·         Parallelism: "Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief" (159).

·         Anadiplosis: "...because no one else was interested―interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which everyone has some vague right at the end" (172).

            Throughout The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald relies upon the reader to engage in revealing the rumors and truths about Gatsby, much like a detective, into chronological order. Repeatedly, he includes rhetorical strategies that convey his personal, affectionate writing style that parallels the early 1920's, when the novel takes place. After five long years of separation and doubt filling Gatsby's , and former lover, Daisy's,  minds, Gatsby easily recalls the long-desired moment when they first kissed and reiterates to Nick that "At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete" (117). Fitzgerald incorporates a multitude of similes that help to embellish the reader's imagination and subtly convey Gatsby's extensive loneliness that he struggled to fill with large parties. Although, at times, Fitzgerald can be obscure and intentionally unorganized in his  arrangement of events, he is able to effectively exemplify the emotions that fill the room at all times with his descriptive personification, "From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air" (139).  By simply incorporating what the music sounded like, Fitzgerald illustrates the lengthy awkwardness generated when Tom begins to question Daisy whether she ever loved him or not. After Gatsby's death, Nick, the main character, finds himself "surprised and confused"(172) and  thought to himself, "I was responsible because no one else was interested―interested, I mean, with that intense personal interest to which everyone has some vague right at the end" (172). The inclusion of this anadiplosis provides an intimacy of Nick's thoughts to the reader, which Fitzgerald continuously aims to address.  It is here that Fitzgerald reveals the truth about what he thought of the 1920's, everyone striving for happiness but somehow landing just short of it and for some, like Gatsby, this meant dying alone.