Blog Topic #3: Syntax

·         "He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity" (97).

            After a dreadful five years of waiting to see Daisy again, the day has finally came, and while Gatsby gives Daisy a tour of his house, Nick follows closely behind. Nick's thoughts start to wander off and he realizes that Gatsby has longed for this day for such an extensive amount of time that his hopes for their reunion had become unfathomable. Fitzgerald's long, fragmented sentence expresses Gatsby's time-consuming search for happiness. The sentence structure leads the reader to identify the anguish that Gatsby has suffered through, revealing a sorrowful tone. By using commas to separate fragments, Fitzgerald is able to mirror Gatsby's experience of long-awaited pleasure while at the same time allow for clarity through his sentences. This slow-paced sentence is intended to provoke pity for Gatsby, for he had waited so long to endure bliss yet even now with Daisy in front of him,  his expectations do not live up to reality.

·         "But with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so he gave that up and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away, trying to touch what was no longer tangible, struggling unhappily, undespairingly, toward that lost voice across the town" (142).

             This long, choppy sentence starts off with a fast pace and shifts into a slower, more dramatic one. By doing so, Fitzgerald effectively portrays Daisy's clear thoughts and shifts into Gatsby's reestablished agony out of realization that he cannot bring back the past. This syntactical sentence further elucidates a somber tone that becomes more apparent toward the end of the novel. In addition to this, the sentence reveals the theme of "The Decline of the American Dream;" the inclusion of "dead dream" suggests that Gatsby's dream of contentment with Daisy is "no longer tangible" because although Daisy once loved Gatsby, she would be crazy to leave Tom for him.