Rhetorical Strategies

Blog # 1: Rhetorical Strategies

           

• Imagery: “Absolutely real-have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real” (30).

When Nick is invited to Gatsby’s house for a party, he and Jordan Baker encounter the “owl-eyed man.” He sits there, mumbling to himself in astonishment because the books in the library are “absolutely real [with] pages and everything.” The image that Gatsby is trying to portray is merely a façade; he does not want people to see him for what he truly is, which is a fraud. This is similar to how he tells everyone that he went to Oxford, but he is simply hiding the fact that he gets his money through crime. The books are also seen to represent Gatsby himself; the pages are untold since they have been unopened, similar to Gatsby’s own life.

• Paradox: “I came into her room… and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress—and as drunk as a monkey” (76).

The insertion of the abrupt statement “and as drunk as a money” after the hyphen contradicts her outward disposition of being “as lovely as the June night.” Daisy in her flowered dress is simply her appearance, while being as drunk as a monkey displays her internal distress that has been caused by her conflicting love relations.

• Symbolism/Allusion: “Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night” (128).

A biblical allusion can be made with Eckleburg. The eyes of the doctor or portrayed as being the eyes of God, which explain why Michaelis was so shocked. They are described as being enormous, which is how Christ was commonly depicted so that they were they eyes that looked into heaven. Eckleburg serves as the Christ Pantokrator, the overseer and all-knowing ruler of all.

• Cacophony: “By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing “stunts” all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky” (37).

The loud, chaotic scenery mirrors that of Fitzgerald’s style. He includes, throughout the book, usually when there are heated arguments, many cacophonies that add to the suspense of the scene. In this example, they depict the people singing in jazz, which is appropriate since it was the Jazz Age. The raucous that is present here reflects the West Egg Aristocracy that does not value the self-made man or individual pursuit of happiness; they only value pursuit of happiness through alcohol. The loud and obnoxious scene of drunken people solidifies the recurring them of the decadence of moral and social values as well.