reflection

Blog #5: Personal Blog

            The book The Great Gatsby was a very interesting book for me. I would have

never chosen to read this if I had not been assigned it and I am actually very glad that I

was assigned this book. I happened to really enjoy the whole story from the love triangle

and the dramatic ending to the love triangle. I have always loved a great love story and

although this wasn’t only about love it was a great book. I very much enjoyed

Fitzgerald’s use of imagery and formal writing tactics. It made reading the book so much

better being able to picture the story in my mind and I loved reading a book that was

written so formal and classic. After reading this what was the most exciting thing was to

learn that even back in the 1920s people had “drama” just as ours. With the rich people ,

or popular people, throwing huge parties and everyone wanting to go even though you’re

not invited. I also liked how for me Fitzgerald always kept me guessing with what was

going to happen next. It wasn’t a predictable book and for that I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed

how Fitzgerald was able to take just a basic person and  make a great story, some of the

characters resemble people we all may know which was exciting for me to in some what

of a way compare the characters to people I know. The only thing I did not like about this

book was the way it ended. For me I would’ve liked to read a “happily ever after” ending

but this book was very enjoyable to read. 

text connections

Many people can make several different text connections in this book. For me

though it would have to be text to self and text to text. For text to self, I think that at

times everyone has had a “crush” on someone they know they cannot like. Just as Gatsby

is in love with Daisy but Daisy is married to Tom. This is a perfect example of feelings

that many people now a days have had for others, whether they are in a relationship or the

other person is the one in the relationship. Also the strong love that Daisy and Gatsby

share is something that I have experienced, and even though it is not with a boyfriend I

love my family so much and would do anything for them just as Daisy and Gatsby love

each other very much. And a text to text connection would be the forbidden love that

Romeo and Juliet share in the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. In this play Romeo

and Juliet are from two rival families and fall in love which is a love that is doomed from

the start just as Daisy and Gatsby. And at the beginning the ironic thing is that both

Romeo and Juliet die in the play and although Daisy doesn’t Gatsby

does die towards the end of the book. 

Syntax

Blog #3: Syntax

• “the idea staggered me”(73)

• “By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever.”(75)

• “There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the

same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed

commotion”(104)

            Syntax is almost like the structure of a sentence, if you change the structure you

change the sentence completely, sometimes even the meaning. So when Fitzgerald

structured his sentences he brought different meanings to the words. The first example is

a short choppy sentence which can demonstrate a short, quick thought or even a bit of

rudeness due to it’s lack of elaboration. The second example is an example of tautology,

a rhetorical device. The extra two words at the end of the sentence, “gay as ever”, serve

to amplify the importance of this sentence. Without those last words it wouldn’t be as

bold and would lack a sense of importance. The last example is an example of repetition.

Fitzgerald uses the words “same people” and “many” a multiple of times into his

sentence. The use of the same words over again also makes known to the reader just how

important those words actually are that are describing the parties. 

Diction

Fitzgerald uses very elevated and formal diction. Especially when he is describing

the lavish parties and the people there. When he describes the music as the “orchestra

playing yellow cocktail music” (40) he again uses formal diction and choose words that

are very “fancy”. Fitzgerald uses imagery many times in his novel and one specific time

is when he describes a women with “an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if

the nerves of her body were continually smoldering”(25). This use of elevated word

choice is able to demonstrate the serious tone of this whole book. The Great Gatsby has a

very serious tone throughout the story and a very formal one as well. The formal and

almost prim wording of the book helps to create this serious and “proper” tone. The

narrator describes Gatsby’s lavish life style by saying “I watched his guests diving from

the tower of his raft, or taking the son on he hot sand of his beach while his two motor-

boasts slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataract of foam”(39).  Here

the reader can infer that Gatsby has led a very privileged lifestyle  and one can also

determine the tone of the novel. While talking about the boats and beaches and parties

Fitzgerald does so in a very elegant wording almost romanticizing the life style of

Gatsby.

Rhetorical Strategies

• Imagery-“She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering.”(25)

• Appositive-“during the course of her song she had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sad”(51)

• Personification-“the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn”(61)

• Repetition-“There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-colored, many-keyed commotion”(104)

• Simile-“indefinable expression, at once definitely unfamiliar and vaguely recognizable, as if I had only heard it described in words, passed over Gatsby’s face.”(121)

Throughout his novel, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses many rhetorical strategies. I think that he 


uses these to ultimately demonstrate his choice of writing, other wise known as his style. To me 


Fitzgerald’s style in this book is somewhat serious and formal. He is very serious when describing 


the lavish parties and he also writes in a very formal way as well. The rhetorical strategies he 


employees aids to his formalistic type of writing.When Fitzgerald describes the women of this time 


period I also feel as if he is being very elegant in the way he uses his words to describe them, almost

making them all sound beautiful which to me makes sense seeing that this book is based on the

1920s era where men were “gentlemen”.