Juxtaposition In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the reader experiences the lifestyle of people in the 1920s. Life is good in the 1920s for the average person, theaters begin showing movies with sound, jazz music is becoming popular, and the automobile is becoming very sought after. Although, like in today's society, money still plays a very important role in the way people live. This is shown in the novel through the life of two different couples.
Admired Author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his renown novel, The Great Gatsby, emphasizes the emotional state of Nick after the passing of his close friend. Fitzgerald’s main purpose is to reveal the gloomy, final thoughts that still linger in Nick’s mind about the demise of Gatsby and his elaborate lifestyle. His strong use of imagery creates a heartrending attitude in Nick which grasps on to the mind of the readers. Fitzgerald presents the paragraph by using various types of syntax to contrast the past thoughts of Gatsby and his house from the melancholy truth of the present. Fitzgerald has Nick illustrate the great memories he had at Gatsby's house when describing his saturday nights in New York by the “gleaming, dazzling parties” that were
1. " He had one of those rare smiles,... believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself." (p.48/2) This quotation is an important one because it talks about the close-up examination of Gatsby from Nick's view of point.
Fitzgerald utilizes many rhetorical strategies throughout his novel. Specific to the excerpt the rhetorical strategies metaphor and personification are found to be used to strengthen Fitzgerald’s key themes of dreams and reality. Ultimately though, the rhetorical strategies and themes contribute to creating the effect that Gatsby is truly above the average man and that Gatsby, at least to Nick, is some amazing creature that grew from his dreams. The first instance of personification to be used in the passage is in the line, “I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever: I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart” This use of personification has the effect of
“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” (fitzgerald 7). The next character Nick described was Gatsby. Nick favors Gatsby the most out of all the characters. Nick describes Gatsby’s smile for a long time.
Fitzgerald incorporates imagery and metaphor in this passage to convey immutability of reality, no matter how grand one's imagination is. In Gatsby’s early life, he lived on a yacht in Lake Superior and attempted to work his way up to the upper class. He was in a “constant, turbulent riot” and was restless, unhappy with his current status. The juxtaposition of “grotesque and fantastic conceits” demonstrates the impalpable desires that a lower class member like himself wants in life. The verb “haunted” further develops the idea that his aspirations were unreachable, but his hope to escape the lower class made them seem possible.
Distinguished writer F. Scott Fitzgerald in his novel The Great Gatsby illustrates Nick dealing with Gatsby’s death. Fitzgerald’s purpose is to capture Nick’s process of acceptance for Gatsby not being alive anymore. His wistful imagery and nostalgic word choice serves to produce a sentimental attitude in Nick to convey sympathy in the audience. Fitzgerald opens up his passage by utilizing wistful imagery that goes along with Nick’s attitude.
According to www.psychologytoday.com, physical looks, charm, and wealth are features that make a man attractive. All of these components of attractiveness were possessed by Gatsby. “He smiled understandingly --- much more understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal resistance in it, that you may come across four or five times in your life” (Fitzgerald 48). This is the narrator, Nick, explaining how Gatsby’s smile is an extremely charming physical feature.
Throughout the passage, Fitzgerald adds depth to Nick’s character, establishing motivation for his actions, for example, now Nick’s motivation to accompany Tom to meet Myrtle even though he didn’t want to, was because the trip meant he had something to do and that someone, in this case Tom, wanted him. The passage also provides insight, which explains why Gatsby, a self-centered man who initiated contact with Nick for personal gain, and Nick, a shy, socially awkward man who wants to be wanted and desires an effort-free companion, are
At first glance, Nick described his smile as, “...one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life.” (Fitzgerald 48). He feels that his smile feels safe and welcoming. He thinks that Gatsby is someone he would want to be around.
The passage from The Great Gatsby,which begins on page 179,conveys a depressed attitude that Nick has towards Gatsby. His depressed tone is created by the usage of concrete details , which works together with the flashbacks of previous memories that Nick had with Gatsby. Fitzgerald also uses hyperboles which over-exaggerate the feelings that Nick has towards Gatsby. The usage of these rhetorical devices help nick better develop the depressed attitude.
The novel The Great Gatsby provides several examples of juxtaposition throughout the first three chapters. Because the characters are living in prosperity, it creates a lot of contrast in values, material items, and overall thoughts of the characters. Each character differs in there own way. An example that stands out the most to me is Nick vs. The people around him.
Fitzgerald attempts to make Gatsby appear as a compassionate and humble man who cares for everyone but fails at doing so by showing his many flaws and actions that go against the very idea of him being a compassionate man. At first, Gatsby appears to be perhaps the only compassionate man in the book and maybe even comparable to Christ. You see him opening his home to everyone, and taking people in and being kind hearted to everyone he encounters but later the reader begins to discover that everything Gatsby does, has an ulterior motive. For example, his kindness to Nick first appears to be just him being kind to his neighbour, however the reader later realises that the only purpose in Gatsby’s kindness towards Nick was to get him to assist him come in to contact with Daisy and be reintroduced to her. “I’m going to make a big request of you to-day” (Fitzgerald 52).
The famous novel, The Great Gatsby, makes use of many literary elements, but juxtaposition is the element use most impressively and effectively. Juxtaposition, which is showing contrasting characters or settings to develop the story or add to a characters personality, is a very important part of The Great Gatsby. Be it between the lifestyles of our main character, Nick Carraway, and the namesake of the book, Jay Gatsby, or between the entirety of chapter one and chapter three, we see juxtaposition used incredibly well in just the first three chapters. F. Scott Fitzgerald almost seems to have invented the idea of juxtaposing. Although both Nick Carraway and Gatsby come from very rich families, incredible differences are apparent between
This relationship was fascinating in terms of its state, it was brotherly in some instances, fatherly in others but overall it possessed a romantic and breathless characteristic of hope. This is evident as we witness Nick’s immediate curiosity and admiration for Gatsby. Nick’s fascination began at the start of the novel as he wonders, “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him (Gatsby)”. (Fitzgerald 3). Gatsby made Nick feel hopeful and magnificent, this kind of hope was romantic and orgasmic in a sense, because of the way in which he
