The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby was a great book ,that I thought, had an interesing theme, the theme being that the American Dream is not all always full of wonder and could have its falling outs. The american dream that they had was that they were all rich, Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby. They have there falls when Daisy learns of Tom’s affair with another women, Myrtle. Daisy and Gatsby have a past where Daisy liked Gatsby but he wasn’t wealthy and she was tired of waiting for him. Tom and Daisy end up meeting up where they rekindle the old flame they had together and they start and affair. Fitzgerald strengthens his theme with the literary themes personification, foreshadowing and irony.

Fitzgerald uses personification as a theme to describe the place that Daisy and Tom live in. “…but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away.” He also uses this literary device to describe where they live, “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens - finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon,.”(page 6). When I read these quotes I liked how they painted a picture of how wealthy they are Fitzgerald painting a descriptive picture of where they live.

Another literary term that I found was foreshadowing. Fitzgerald uses foreshadowing in the book for when Tom finds out about Gatsby and Daisy’s affair together. The day that he found out was described as “The next day was broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer”(page114). I thought that it was interesting because this was the day that Tom confronted Gatsby about his affair with Daisy and they got into a heated debate.

The last literary term that I connected to the theme was Irony. “The "death car." as the newspapers called it, didn't stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend” (page 138) “"Who was the woman?." he inquired. "Her name was Wilson. Her husband owns the garage. How the devil did it happen?." "Well, I tried to swing the wheel - ." He broke off, and suddenlyI guessed at the truth. "Was Daisy driving?." "Yes,." he said after a moment…” (page 144). I found this to be ironic that Tom’s wife, Daisy killed his mistress Myrtle Wilson and not even on purpose.

What happened at the end of the book Tom told Wilson, Myrtle’s widow, that Gatsby killed his wife. Wilson took things into his own hands and killed Gatsby and himself.

“There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. with little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool.
A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of compass, a thin red circle in the water.
It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete” (page 162-163)

This part stood out to me because it was a combination of all three literary terms personification when he describes the water urging out of the drain. Foreshadowing with how the weather is “There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the… A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden” The weather gave a sense of something bad just happened. It was ironic that Daisy killed the women in Tom’s affair and Tom’s actions of telling Wilson, Gatsby killed his wife, led to the killing of Gatsby who Daisy was having an affair with.