Blog Topic #1: Rhetorical Strategies

·         Simile: “Then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk” (14).

·         Imagery: “The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms” (17).

·         Parallelism: “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life” (35).

·         Repetition: “It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely that impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey” (48).

·         Anecdote: The retelling of Jordan Baker’s first time meeting Jay Gatsby and Daisy Fay’s relations with him (74).

·         Oxymoron: “Her throat, full of aching, grieving beauty, told only of her unexpected joy” (89).

Throughout the novel Fitzgerald utilizes many rhetorical strategies in order to convey his specific style, although imagery is most commonly used.  When retelling the event of Nick’s first attendance of one of Jay Gatsby’s parties, Fitzgerald utilizes imagery to illustrate the qualities of the party: the guests “dressed up in white flannels,” the orchestra “playing yellow cocktail music,” and “floating rounds of cocktails” (40-41). He illustrates this in order to express his flowery style. Overall, the rhetorical strategies aid in the reinforcement of his ornate style that so intelligently reflects the upper-class’s frivolous perception of life. Fitzgerald chooses to write like this for it is effective in painting the lives of the upper-class which the novel mainly centers around.