Critical Examination of a Passage in Great Gatsby

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This passage is from the great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It tells a story, specifically the history which Gatsby and Daisy had. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby until the war ended. But as it is Daisy’s youth and need for love and attention has made her insecure to stay alone for so long. Soon she attended parties and dances. At one of them she met the safe and strong Tom Buchanan. Despite the fact that she loved Jay, he was not there, so she married Tom.

The diction used in this passage as well as in the whole novel is simple. Therefore Fitzgerald uses simple language to illustrate everyday aspects, such as the decline of the American dream as well as the hollowness of the upper class. By using simple language it makes the audience bigger that can relate to the novel, and therefore makes the novel universal.

Great usage of the s-alliteration is used in “…while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shinning dust.” This describes the action of the multitude ladies moving around is described successfully.

Fitzgerald’s style might be called imagistic. The language used is full of images-concrete verbal pictures. There is water imagery in descriptions of the rain, Long Island Sound, and the swimming pool. There are the Godlike eyes of Dr. Eckleburg and in words such as incarnation, and grail. Abstract images are used as well when there is referred to the artificial world as snobbery, sadness. These images do not only describe the world in which the...

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