Thesis: In this passage, Fitzgerald's stylistic choices illustrate his concern with America's path of loneliness and isolation if they continue to pursue a corrupted American dream.
Fitzgerald juxtaposes harsh commanding images & sound of nature with soft sounds and mans attempt to overpower nature in order to show mans greed in the age of the "bigger, better, faster" mentality. In this passage, Fitzgerald uses imagery and symbolism to portray his thoughts of the American dream. Fitzgerald uses vivid and lively words such as "summer," "wind," "earth," "trees," "frogs," "stars," and "heavens" to create an image of life and purity. Being a modernist, Fitzgerald believed in the power of nature, and how man made things should never be compared to those created by God. Fitzgerald continues to pair these lively words with words that signify the "bigger, better, faster" mentality. New technologies that are mentioned include "garages," "red gas-pumps," "pools of light," " abandoned grass roller," and "mansion." By using these words, Fitzgerald shows how these items of technology are beginning to mix with elements of nature, and by juxtaposing them with those words associated with creations of God, Fitzgerald can demonstrate how America was too focused in on their materialistic ways. Their new technologies such as red-gas pumps or an abandoned grass roller signify mans attempt to battle nature. Be it by using up natures' natural resources to fuel an automobile and pollute the environment, or by leaving a grass trimming device out on the lawn to kill the grass beneath it, Fitzgerald does a nice job showing mans attempts to overpower nature.
Another way Fitzgerald refers to man made objects and nature is through his diction. Fitzgerald uses alliterations to subconsciously persuade us to believe in those things created by God. When Fitzgerald writes of nature and those things that are made by God, he uses powerful sounding words such as "blown," "beating," "bright," "bellows," and "blew." When pronounced, these words have a loud and upbeat sound due to the letter B. It forces readers to imagine nature as strong and commanding. In order to further his juxtaposition, Fitzgerald ties quiet and soft alliterations with those images of technology. Fitzgerald does this when he mentions man-made luxuries and those items related to materialism such as Gatsby's mansion. Fitzgerald uses words such as "shadow," "standing," "silver," "Something," "secure," "suggested," and "share.
In the third sentence, note the metaphor and explain Fitzgerald’s choice of this particular metaphor.
Fitzgerald has an in-depth writing style. He uses symbols through out the text, which highlight key ideas, some are more obvious than others although all are effective. He has added detail to the smallest of things and every component of this text has a meaning. Fitzgerald has used many symbols thought this text some which include a green light, representing what Gatsby dreams of having and what he can’t reach, the Valley of Ashes, where people like George and Myrtle Wilson live - people who are not very wealthy - . the eyes of T.J Eckleburg, who is represented very alike to God who is known to see everything that happens, the clock, which is knocked over by Gatsby symbolising that Gatsby and Daisy have caught up in time and the weather which symbolises the atmosphere between
... dies in the corruption and deceit of its making. Fitzgerald makes evident that those who pursue the dream of attaining its brand of success, as defined by those around one, curse themselves to a life corrupted by those who pursue that same ideal. The American dream, like the conspiracy between the baseball players and gamblers involved in throwing the 1919 World Series (73), is a conviction held so strongly that those who pursue the American dream become the corruption and deceit in it or, at least, the facilitators of such unethical behavior and immorality.
“Riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky; I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again.”(Fitzgerald). F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, into a very prestigious, catholic family. Edward, his father, was from Maryland, and had a strong allegiance to the Old South and its values. Fitzgerald’s mother, Mary, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul. His upbringing, affected much of his writing career. Half the time F. Scott Fitzgerald thought of himself as the “heir of his father's tradition, which included the author of The Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key, after whom he was named” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). The other half the time he acted as “straight 1850 potato-famine Irish” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). Consequently, he had typically indecisive feelings about American life, which seemed to him at once “vulgar and dazzlingly promising” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). This idea is expressed in much of Fitzgerald’s writing. From an early age he had an “intensely romantic imagination” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography); he longed for a life of passion, fame and luxury.
Written during and regarding the 1920s, ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald is both a representation of this distinctive social and historical context, and a construction of the composer’s experience of this era. Beliefs and practises of the present also play a crucial role in shaping the text, in particular changing the way in which literary techniques are interpreted. The present-day responder is powerfully influenced by their personal experiences, some of which essentially strengthen Fitzgerald’s themes, while others compete, establishing contemporary interpretations of the novel.
Fitzgerald uses devices like Dr T. J. Eckleburg, The Valley of Ashes, The Green Light, cars and colours in ‘The Great Gatsby’ to convey varying themes such as hope, longing, foreboding and one of the main themes, corruption, specifically corruption of the American Dream.
Fitzgerald's book at first overwhelms the reader with poetic descriptions of human feelings, of landscapes, buildings and colors. Everything seems to have a symbolic meaning, but it seems to be so strong that no one really tries to look what's happening behind those beautiful words. If you dig deeper you will discover that hidden beneath those near-lyrics are blatancies, at best.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby”, is one of the few novels he wrote in 1925. The novel takes place during the 1920’s following the 1st World War. It is written about a young man named Nick, from the east he moved to the west to learn about the bond business. He ends up moving next to a mysterious man named Gatsby who ends up giving him the lesion of his life.
...m that was based more on wealth and possessions and less on hard work and achievement. The fact that he later rebelled against the material 1920s culture shows that he was in fact cautioning against this lifestyle rather than encouraging it.” This more than anything proves Fitzgerald is making a commentary on the corruption of the American Dream rather than simply the tale of wealthy lovers.
The freedom in self endowment has always been the fuel to the average American citizen and his drive toward success. In other words, Americans always strive to achieve the ever so revered American Dream. What is the American Dream? David Kamp describes the American Dream as "the idea rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."(Kamp). The dream lies deeply rooted in American society and the very mention of it lights a passionate fire in the hearts of American citizens everywhere. The idea behind the dream is that if an individual has sufficient willpower, he or she has a fair chance of achieving wealth as well as the freedom and happiness that come packaged with it. Essentially, it offers the opportunity of achieving spiritual and material fulfillment. It promises success at the cost of hard work and perseverance. Over time however, this idea of attaining success through hard work and perseverance has been skewed into one which exploits greed and carelessness and The Great Gatsby is an excellent affirmation of this. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald derides the gradual corruption of hard work and perseverance in the American Dream by utilizing the motif of driving and incorporating it with the the ideas of greed and carelessness.
Paragraph: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Lawrence Ferlinghetti uses imagery and diction to show how the rich and poor’s are divided by the color of the society from the relation to the environment people live in. When the garbage truck and the luxurious Mercedes stoped at a light, it describes, “A bright yellow garbage truck with two garbage men in red plastic blazers” (Ferlinghetti 3-4) and “The men in a hip three-piece linen suit with shoulder-length blond hair & sunglasses” (Ferlinghetti 10-11). This shows the huge difference to the environment in each peoples lives that people goes through between society. In The Great Gatsby it shows the difference in the community in the cities when it describes, “The ashes take the former of houses and chimneys
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald employs the use of characters, themes, and symbolism to convey the idea of the American Dream and its corruption through the aspects of wealth, family, and status. In regards to wealth and success, Fitzgerald makes clear the growing corruption of the American Dream by using Gatsby himself as a symbol for the corrupted dream throughout the text. In addition, when portraying the family the characters in Great Gatsby are used to expose the corruption growing in the family system present in the novel. Finally, the American longing for status as a citizen is gravely overshot when Gatsby surrounds his life with walls of lies in order to fulfill his desires for an impure dream. F. Scot. Fitzgerald, through his use of symbols, characters, and theme, displays for the reader a tale that provides a commentary on the American dream and more importantly on its corruption.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most compelling twentieth century writers, (Curnutt, 2004). The year 1925 marks the year of the publication of Fitzgerald’s most credited novel, The Great Gatsby (Bruccoli, 1985). With its critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream (Berman, 1996), this dramatic idyllic novel, (Harvey, 1957), although poorly received at first, is now highly regarded as Fitzgerald’s finest work (Rohrkemper, 1985) and is his publisher, Scribner 's most popular title, (Donahue, 2013). The novel achieved it’s status as one of the most influential novels in American history around the nineteen fifties and sixties, over ten years after Fitzgerald 's passing, (Ibid, 1985)
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...
And critique he does. Fitzgerald scathingly deconstructs the American Dream, and by extension the almost globally echoed aspirations. The target of his scepticism? Capitalism. The foul dust that permeates the veins of the society just under the apparently glittering surface, poisoning America’s lifeblood with the relentless pursuit of wealth. It is the single-minded capitalist focus on wealth, Fitzgerald maintains, that has led to the decay of the dream from its originally pure ideals.