Blog # 1 (Rhetorical Strategies)

·      *Personification: “The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walls and burning gardens-finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run”(6).

·      *Alliteration:  “I was lonely no longer”(4).

·      *Simile: “A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea” (8).

·      *Onamonapia: “I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall” (8).

·      *Hyperbole: “Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old”(18).

·      *Metaphor: “The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain” (85).

Blog # 1: Rhetorical devices

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald writes with a flowery style in order to portray the lavishness of the characters’ lives in the seemingly perfect society that he created. In describing Gatsby’s manor, he mentions the lawn as part of the house, creating an opulent, grand demeanor about it. Through personification he employs Gatsby’s lawn and house almost as another character, further illustration the superficial thinking of the people and the high culture present throughout the novel. The explicit description of the lawn also illustrates the shallowness of the society in that they see Gatsby’s house as another being and give it the respect that only a person should deserve. While describing the interior of the Buchanans’ home, the author writes, “a breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea” (8). Fitzgerald is able to manipulate words to form a seemingly delicate and innocent visualization of the society, however, as a shadow on the water is not always what it seems to be, so too are the lives and actions of the people. The author’s employment of rhetorical devices and flowery style create an illusion of a flawless society that is really self-absorbed and flat.