The Great Gatsby Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Nick describes Tom as a brutish, hulking, powerful man who is extremely arrogant. He also goes on to describe that Tom is unfaithful to his

intruding to him until the third chapter but instead building up the mystery around him. It also expresses how he would be with a crowd that he invites but he’s not part of the group at all. Like when you shop up to a party that you don’t know anyone. That feeling is showed off to him as I read on “standing alone on the marble stops and looking from one group to another” “Sometimes they come and went without having met Gatsby at all”.

Quote with context: When explaining the different connotations surrounding the color white, the narrator questions “what is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men – has no substantive deformity – and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so?” (Melville 166).

Throughout the story, The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the narrator Nick Carraway as easily manipulated by others with greater influence or power. After meeting with Tom Buchanan and his mistress in New York, Nick drives them to Tom’s apartment. After Nick insists he simply drops them off, Fitzgerald writes, “‘No, you don’t,’ interposed Tom quickly”(32). By using the diction “interposed”, it is shown that Tom is able to use his authority to make Nick agree to what Tom wants. Additionally, when Gatsby shows Nick his metal supposedly earned during World War One, and a picture of Gatsby at Oxford, Nick exclaims, “Then it was all true. I saw the skins of tigers flaming in his palace on the Grand Canal; I saw him opening a chest

As Fitzgerald started to build the base of his storyline, one element that stood out to me was his characterization of Nick Carraway and Tom Buchanan. Nick followed a motto in life, told by his father, ‘"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had”(1).’ Right off the bat, Fitzgerald portrays Carraway as an objective and nonjudgmental human being. As I read further through the chapter, I noticed Fitzgerald’s quite forward judgment of Tom, “... Rather a hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward” (11). Fitzgerald's depiction of Buchanan offsets the moderate portrayal of the narrator. This intimidating and bully like ambiance radiating off Tom “appears” later in the chapter when he continuously cuts Daisy off in the middle of her talking. Nick vividly describes the “appearance” of Tom, “Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body. It was a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body” (11). Fitzgerald was implying that whatever you may look from the outside, it definitely doesn’t portray who you are inside. From the outside, Tom looks well dressed and clean cut, but his personality does not suit him by any means. I believe that Fitzgerald had a meaning behind the way of characterizing and

Nick, the narrator of the novel, introduces the reader(s) to Tom Buchanan, the husband of his cousin, Daisy, and explains how Nick has always known Tom as the annoying, egotistical, and the stereotypical rich white man, which is shown in his thoughts,

Fitzgerald’s writing enhances and becomes effective due to concrete diction. The author uses scenarios and physical traits to stagger and increase the comprehension of the audience. In chapter seven, while Nick is on a train towards East Egg, Nick observes closely at the conductor, stating “that anyone should care in this heat whose flushed lips,

Nick's assessment of the other characters is honest, he does not exaggerate their actions, although his incessant judging and prejudging is biased, that is reserved to him. Carroway relays Tom's remarks about race "It's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things" but does not interrupt the conversation to add his judgement, rather he waits until Tom is finished to state "There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old was not enough to him anymore." By separating his assumption from what actually happened the reader is encouraged to believe that Nick is a reliable narrator who does not distort the

Throughout the novel Tom is shown as someone very arrogant and abrupt in the way he talks to people and feels he has the authority to question others in an interrogatory manner. In his first meeting with Nick he

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Tom Buchanan is portrayed as a bully who is snobbish, physically and mentally abusive, and ridiculously wealthy. He is good at covering his lack of self-esteem by talking bigger and better about himself than how he truly feels. Tom is a large powerful man therefore he is always ready for a fight if somebody dare to disagree with him. Nick observes, “I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrevocable football game.” (Fitzgerald 17) Nick’s speculation about Buchanan and the irrevocable football game presents Tom as someone whose needs can never fully be met. Buchanan through his many outburst of aggression. Fitzgerald assures that readers

    The Unreliable Narrator: Nick Carraway starts out the novel by explaining the the reader that his dad gave him advice that he lives by, “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had” (Fitzgerald 1). Nick says he is inclined to keep all of his judgements to himself, and looks up to his dad and these words. In the very next few pages, Nick describes Tom’s body, someone he knew in college after seeing him for the first time, as, “It was a body capable of enormous leverage-a cruel body” (Fitzgerald 7). Nick goes against his father's words by judging Tom’s body. This tells the readers that Nick might not be very social and be a person that stays in the background of situations judging people and their actions. This action can foreshadow to the remainder of the novel, that the narrator, Nick, will be unreliable.

Parents always warn their children to steer clear from shady and unreliable characters. Real life situations are the target of this notion, but such a claim also stands true for literature. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick, the narrator, is a shady character who disclosed no personal information about himself and expected the viewer’s trust in return. As a result, Scott Donaldson, in his article “The Trouble with Nick” deliberates his opinion over what a terrible person Nick is, however later determines that regardless of how shady Nick may be, he is still the only one fit to narrate The Great Gatsby. Some of Scott Donaldson’s views of Nick as an unreliable narrator may stand true; however, it is definitely agreeable that Nick Carraway is the only acceptable narrator for The Great Gatsby.

When he first walks in Nick judges Tom and Daisy's lives based on the appearance of the house, perfect and romanticized, yet he soon learns that this first impression is an overstatement. Nick's use of diction such as 'fragilely bound' (12) and 'French windows' (12) connote that their lives may look perfect on the

Scott Fitzgerald reveals Nick’s characterization through the very descriptive narrative voice using rich imagery. The author contrasts the very rich imagery with the fact that Nick is irrelevant to the plot. To create the sense of an environment which is full of emotions and very alive the author uses highly descriptive imagery. Nick is very aware of his surroundings and what’s going on, such as when he describes the atmosphere of a certain time of the day in which “All the lights were going on in West Egg now; the electric trains, men-carrying, were plunging home though the rain from New York. It was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air” (95) The author to emphasize how aware and observant Nick is frequently uses effective imagery. F. Scott Fitzgerald also puts across the excitement in the lives of the wealthy people during the 1920s by the powerful imagery in the narrative

The passage is structured into three sections, each differing in the use of narration, description, and dialogue. The first paragraph is Nick’s narration that prepares the reader to discover the “strange story” of Gatsby’s youth. The following five paragraphs are an intriguing mixture of narration and description. Gatsby’s descriptive revelation of his past is retold through by Nick’s narration. The filter of Nick’s own opinions inevitably affects the nuance of Gatsby’s experiences. Nick’s biased disapproval of the rich is conveyed through subtle words such as “bought luxury,” which implies his scorn for the rich who enjoy excessive luxury at the expense of others’ efforts.The last paragraph consists of Gatsby’s monologue only, in which the expression of his thoughts are independent of Nick’s opinion. Through this Fitzgerald provides the reader with Gatsby’s honest thoughts, in which his illusions are further made obvious. For example, his misguided belief that Daisy thought he “knew a lot because [he] knew different things from her” is overconfident and idealistic, giving the reader an insight into his character.