Rhetorical Devices Used In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel written with the intent of portraying life and the American Dream in the 1920’s. Before this, The American Dream was all about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but when the 1920’s started, the American Dream turned towards wealth. Wealth made a man, and the poor were “shiftless and unsuccessful.” Jay Gatsby, the focus of the novel, is a wealthy man built on nothing. The purpose of him having all this wealth is because of his everlasting hope of Daisy Buchanan. He is hopelessly in love with her, and he chases after her without leaving the comfort of his own home. Fitzgerald portrays his purpose of showing the wealth based American Dream in the 1920’s with his symbolism of “the green light” as well as with his abundant use of adjectives and adverbs, and his use of rhetorical devices such as polysyndeton, and contrasting language. “Wayside”, “persistent” and “secure” are three of the near twenty adjectives Fitzgerald uses in the two paragraphs from this passage. Fitzgerald’s choice of these specific adjectives and adverbs makes a more positive, hopeful tone such as in the sentence, “..he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling” (Fitzgerald ?). Fitzgerald begins using these …show more content…
Using these devices is important when developing Fitzgerald’s thoughts on how the American Dream is wealth-based. The green light symbolizing hope shows Gatsby’s own personal American Dream, the descriptive terms used also show Gatsby’s feelings towards this “hope”, and polysyndeton and contrasting language personifies the American Dream in the 1920’s by creating a seamless flow of words, and contrasting the views had by people living in this time