Blog Topic #5: Personal Review

           I positively enjoyed The Great Gatsby mostly because of how easy it was for me to comprehend and relate to. I was very entertained by the love story between Daisy and Gatsby and felt like I could relate to a lot of the story. I thought it was well written, too. F. Scott Fitzgerald did a remarkable job of changing his sentence structures periodically and keeping the audience amused. Throughout the entire novel I mostly liked how Fitzgerald switched topics frequently as he would talk about Gatsby’s life and then switch to the events taking place in Nick’s life. Something else I loved about the novel was the simplicity of how it was written. While reading some novels, I have gotten confused due to a high level of vocabulary or strange sentence structure, but in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald maintains a simple and comprehensible level of vocabulary. I did not dislike anything in particular about the novel because the whole story was so well-written. The way I related to Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship was the only thing that stood out to me while reading The Great Gatsby, since it was so easy for me to understand how Gatsby thought. Of all novels I have read, The Great Gatsby is definitely one of my favorites..

Blog Topic #4: Text Connections

     In the novel, Gatsby vents to a couple people about how him and Daisy were meant for each other and how they were supposed to end up together. Gatsby says that the reason they are not together is because of Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan, who got in the way of Gatsby and Daisy undeniable attraction to each other. As Gatsby remembers the way he and Daisy used to be, he feels worse and worse about their current relationship situation. I can relate to Gatsby as he talks about the pain that comes from losing someone special to another person. In many different occasions in my life I have lost close friends to others that I do not believe care as much about them. Since I somewhat believe in fate, I can definitely relate to how Gatsby feels when Daisy says that she cannot be with him due to her current relationship with Tom. Having another person “get in the way” can be painful and I understand how Gatsby thinks as he repeatedly states how much he wants Daisy to be a part of his life. Also, as Gatsby and Daisy are separated from each other, I am reminded of Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, two young people fall in love, but are forbidden to see each other and have relations with one another just as Daisy and Gatsby are.

Blog Topic #3: Syntax

·       “I spent my Saturday nights in New York, because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive”(179).

·       “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy” (49).

F. Scott Fitzgerald has a very unique syntax of writing throughout the novel as it changes very often. In some cases Fitzgerald writes with a loose, run-on syntax, using multiple commas and drawing out each one of his points. Many descriptive details are used in the loose sentence above as Nick discusses the New York scene around him on his Saturday nights. In these run-on sentences, Fitzgerald’s ideas are described much more thoroughly with excess detail in order to force a visual into the reader’s mind. By using long sentences and drawing out his ideas, Fitzgerald creates a reality-based tone and makes the reader feel as if they were there. This tone is conveyed sporadically throughout the novel to keep the reader interested and make the story more relatable to the audience.  In other cases, Fitzgerald incorporates a choppy syntax with multiple short, terse sentences. As he conveys his ideas through several short sentences, Fitzgerald creates a chaotic tone and allows the reader to experience Nick’s frenzied train of thought. As Nick collects his thoughts in the sentence above, he laconically states his opinion about large parties and, despite the few words he actually uses, causes the reader to feel jumbled and confused as if they were inside of Nick’s mind. The diversity of sentence structures used by Fitzgerald throughout the novel significantly change the tone of the story and enable the audience to pick up on more than only one feeling.

Blog Topic #2: Diction

           Throughout the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses negative and sarcastic diction to create a pessimistic or cynical tone. As Nick talks to Daisy in the first chapter, he describes that “Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence” (12). Even as Nick has a simple conversation with Daisy he is unable to just focus his attention on Daisy and instead picks apart the way she converses with Miss Baker. For Nick to continually think to himself about how Daisy and Miss Baker talk, he demonstrates how he is unable to have a simple conversation without criticizing the other person. By showing Nick pick apart how she speaks and call it “banter,” Fitzgerald exemplifies a cynical tone and portrays Nick as a negative thinker. As the story continues, Nick meets the Buchanans and Jordan and is complimented as he called an “absolute rose.” Despite the kind compliment Nick receives, he mentally responds by thinking that “This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing”(67). Nick cannot even go as far as to accept the compliment and return it with a thank-you, instead he ponders about why he had received the compliment and how it was incorrect. After receiving the compliment, Nick proceeds to call it “untrue” and suggests that Miss Baker was just “extemporizing.” By not thanking Miss Baker for the compliment and instead picking it apart, Nick proves that he is a very negative character. Since Nick does not say his thoughts about the compliment out loud he comes off as being very critical and rude. After illustrating Nick put himself down and state that Miss Baker was only improvising by complimenting him, Fitzgerald highlights a pessimistic and negative tone that is very much apparent in Nick’s train of thought.

Blog Topic #1: Rhetorical Strategies

·       Asyndeton: “already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group” (40-41).

·       Personification: “the air is alive with chatter and laughter” (40).

·       Imagery: “On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs, and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold” (40).

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby utilizes multiple examples of asyndeton, personification, and imagery as Gatsby’s house party is described in chapter three. Fitzgerald illustrates the events at Gatsby’s large get-together by using an asyndeton to draw out and exaggerate the characteristics of the crowd. By exaggerating and lengthening his sentences with an asyndeton, Fitzgerald causes the reader to imagine the size of the party and how chaotic it must have been. In order to fully emphasize the liveliness at the party, Fitzgerald also personifies the air as being alive and uses imagery to describe how the dinner looked. A feeling of vivacity is obtained by the reader as the air is told to be filled with chatter and laughter. By describing the air this way, Fitzgerald maintains the idea that Gatsby’s party is lively and hectic. Fitzgerald’s use of vivid imagery further illustrates the scene and adds to the description of the party as a massive event. By incorporating many rhetorical strategies into his writing, Fitzgerald makes the story much easier for his audience to visualize.