Rhetorical Analysis Of The Great Gatsby

You sell booze to those that don't want to give it up and are willing to pay the price. This is shown when Tom was talking about Gatsby, he said, “‘I didn’t hear it I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers you know?”’ (109) This is shown on numerous occasions, from the difference between West Egg, East Egg, and the Valley of Ashes. The novel also shows the way money gives people power, in which it says.

The culture of the 1920s encouraged spending and materialism so people sought money, power, and expensive items to make them happy. In the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, who is the epitome of the 1920s American Dream, saw that becoming rich and notable was the only way to get his Dream which was Daisy: “She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. ”(Fitzgerald, ch 7) Furthermore, despite the fact that Tom was born with a silver spoon, he still felt he didn’t have the American Dream because Gatsby was more popular than him: “I know I’m not very popular.

There is a difference between being selfish and being greedy. The definition of greed is “Intense desire for something, especially wealth or power”, whereas the definition of selfish is “Lacking consideration for others”. During the Gilded Age, America was characterized as the Land of the Free, which attracted immigrants from all over the world to come live the American Dream. Was it greedy or selfish for these immigrants to come to America and improve their way of living? During the Gilded Age, greed is what motivated industrial innovation and for people to improve their ways of living.

There is this idea that a person who comes from humble origins could achieve the Dream if they are willing to work hard and take advantage of opportunities. This is seen in Gatsby and Myrtle where they bootleg and commit adultery respectively. Though, the frowning eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg look down on the Valley of the Ashes as if to say that the American Dream is one big lie. The American Dream produced wealth for some, but for the majority of people their hopes for gold is just like the ashes. The reality is that not everyone can have as much money as the Buchanan’s have.

People might think that this creates a new place for them to just get drunk and be reckless, but it actually gives them a safe place to drink responsibly so they are kept off the streets where they could be seriously harmed. In addition to the increase in customers at local restaurants and such, the government will begin to see an increase in tax. In America all types of alcoholic beverages have an overwhelming amount of tax on them. Beverages such as distilled spirits, wine, and beer are three of the most common types of alcoholic beverages. For a gallon of distilled spirits the tax placed on them is $13.50, for a gallon of beer the tax rate is $6.18, and for a gallon of wine the tax is $4.86 (“Economic Contributions of the Distilled Spirits Industry.”)

Fitzgerald is genius in his use of the sun as a metaphor in The Great Gatsby set in the Gilded Age. Realist author Mark Twain figuratively referred to this age (in the late 19th century to early 20th century) as an age that appeared golden and extravagant on the surface but was dull and corrupt on the inside. The rivalry amongst mega corporations, where the wealth accumulated in the hands of the few, bashed the poor into heavy poverty in the Valley of Ashes, whereas the sumptuously stylish men and women of West and East Egg lived according to the doctrine of the American Dream, ceasing to see anything beyond the money and success of the Gilded Age. Fitzgerald’s basic exegesis of this platonic world (a metaphysical world in which perfect forms of people, places and things exist) is reflected through the eyes of James Gatz, who creates a million-dollar form of himself, Jay Gatsby, in hopes of winning

The Great Gatsby and the American Dream The Great Gatsby, written by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, is a book that demonstrates how the American Dream is corrupt. The Great Gatsby presents three varieties of people, which includes the established rich, the newly rich, and the poor.

Labor strikes and riots were common during the time. Policies were put into place to prevent individuals from gaining this much power ever again. In todays’ modern Gilded Age loopholes have been exploited and the rich are becoming just as powerful as they have ever been. Individuals such as the Koch Brothers have taken up the plutocratic mantle, they “buy politicians” in order to further their agenda and business

Jay Gatsby was someone that went from rags to riches which happens more often in the 21st century. Gatsby was a pioneer of coming from poverty into millions of dollars. This shows the American Dream as advertised. Fitzgerald also shows the dark side of the American Dream as in Money’s power to corrupt people or how the rich escape mighty consequences such as Tom and Daisy destroying people’s lives and then falling back to their money. ―”He‘s a bootlegger…

This nation was birthed from the hard work of it's pioneers, frontiersmen, and settlers all of who were working towards their vision the American dream. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald takes the pure and noble notion of striving for the American dream and adds a twist. As the characters within Fitzgerald’s novel try and attempt to achieve their version of the American dream, they willingly discard certain parts of their moral code in order to do so. Jay Gatsby was willing to engage in morally dubious actions to get Daisy back. Jordan would cheat in order to obtain the fame and fortune that came with being a renowned female golf professional.

After the suffering of World War I in the 1920s, many of the upper class Americans focused on filling their lives with endless joy and concentrating their energies on their own pleasure and comfort to forget about wartime memories. The 1920s era was were money had become the foundation of society due to the American dream, where everyone left behind their horrible past and centralized on becoming wealthy and being the most superlative. As a result, in The Great Gatsby through many rhetorical devices, Fitzgerald uses Nick Carraway as his persona in order to portray that money became too powerful and people became extremely selfish and greedy in the 1920s. For instance, through diction, Carraway adequately describes his disgust of the East in

For many American citizens, wealth represents the ideal American dream, something many strive for but not everyone achieves. The novel, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is set on Long Island in the fictional town of West Egg in 1922. Fitzgerald focuses on the representation of old money, which is families that have been wealthy for generations, and new money, which is self- made money on current trends, through the character’s motivations and interactions or relationships with others. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses the nature of wealth and status to show its dehumanizing or corrupting nature with characters through differences in wealth and how they came about it. Analyzing Daisy Buchanan, one of the main characters, Fitzgerald uses her actions to show the corrupting effect of wealth on people.

Antithesis is a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect F Scott. Fitzgerald employs this technique to contrast the character of Nick Carraway with that of the overarching themes present in the society that are also possessed by the other individual characters. This society is steeped in the social stratification and conspicuous materialism that is characteristic of the jazz age of the 1920’s. “These characters… constitute America itself as it moves into the jazz age” , and just like the society that was looking to increase in prosperity, the individual characters in the Great Gatsby were also in pursuit of acquiring and maintaining this money, status and social prestige.

America in the 1920’s was a place for self-absorbed desires and pseudo appearances of wealth and happiness. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the audience looks through the empty lives of three characters from the novel, Jay Gatsby, and the Buchanans, Daisy and Tom. Fitzgerald uses the character's’ trials and tribulations to depict the concept that chasing the hollow American Dream leads only to misery and superfluous materialism. Although each individual had various intentions, in the end, they all displayed immoral actions and toxic behavior in attempt to attain their ideal lives.

Goals can drive a man to great lengths to get what he wants even to the point of insanity and recklessness. Gatsby had great plans almost living the “American Dream” living in a waterfront mansion, acquiring endless amounts of money and even throwing lavish and exquisite parties and almost getting his “dream girl”. At the beginning of the story it seemed that Gatsby acquired greatness, but we later realize that the man we thought we knew was carrying out his life to get Daisy despite her marriage with Tom. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby, the main character Gatsby had great plans for the future, but his ways of carrying out those plans defined his character as weak and menial, since he degraded his family, attempted to steal