The Great Gatsby Figurative Language

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Figure of Speech
Commentary
Simile
“there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines”
Metaphor
My own house was an eyesore
Alliteration
Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body
Hyperbole
“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness”
Personification
The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door
Imagery
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees”
Simile
“the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe”
Imagery
Choose two images which particularly appeal to you and help you to imagine this scene in your mind. Explain how Fitzgerald creates …show more content…

Meyer Wolfsheim, a predator from the underworld who wears a man's molars as cufflinks, is a character who preys upon others. He is a insensitive, subhuman criminal, modeled upon the real-life gangster who fixed the 1919 World Series. The latter part of his name denotes that he is a Jew as Fitzgerald states; at the time of the novel, Jews were stereotyped as unconscionable dealers in money who had little sense of honor in their relationships.

Syntax
Note the polysyndeton in the last sentence. The repeated “and’s” simulate the wind dying down, as objects slowly settle in the room. This device creates the sense that the time it took for everything to settle back down and deflate after Tom shut the window was drawn out and long.

Now look at another syntactical pattern Fitzgerald uses—loose/cumulative sentences. This passage contains no periodic sentences, which develop a sense of tension as the reader waits for the main idea, the independent clause, by the period, at the end of the sentence. Every sentence in this passage is loose/cumulative, except for the last sentence which is a series of balanced independent …show more content…

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 his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body. His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

How does Fitzgerald characterize Tom Buchanan?

In the first chapter of The Great Gatsby, readers get a good overview of this character: He is the husband of Daisy, the object of Jay Gatsby's desire. He is wealthy, and he likes to flaunt it: His family were enormously wealthy and even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach

Look at how Fitzgerald uses syntax.
Note the type of sentences he tends to write (simple, compound, complex,

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