In the third paragraph on page 161 of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates a sad and depressing mood. He does this, first, by taking beautiful objects and, using negative diction, making them seem terrible. This juxtaposition enforces Gatsby's misery by making the reader feel depressed as well. Fitzgerald describes the sky as "unfamiliar," the leaves as "frightening," a rose as "grotesque," the sunlight as "raw," and the grass as "scarcely created." Generally, these living, abundant things are described as lush, beautiful, warm, and colorful, but in this paragraph they are just the opposite. Fitzgerald explains this morbid imagery by stating that Gatsby "no longer cared." It seems that Gatsby has given up hope, and not even the sun and sky can be beautiful any longer. The second way that Fitzgerald creates this gloomy atmosphere is with fearful images, specifically those of ghosts. The end of the paragraph has a direct reference to ghosts, followed by a lengthy description with ghastly diction such as "drifted," "ashen," and "gliding." Furthermore, Fitzgerald continues these images of transparency and fright when he stops illustrating the ghosts, as seen when he describes trees as "amorphous," and mentions that Gatsby "shivered." This paragraph is depressing as well as scary, and the repetition of such negativity has an emotional effect on the reader. However, do you thing that it is meant to reflect on previous deathly happenings, or to preface future occurrences? If it is neither, is this paragraph a reflection of Gatsby's feelings since he is without Daisy, and is waiting expectantly for her to call?
I think that the repetition of such negativity is used to foreshadow horrid happenings, as whenever Fitzgerald uses such strong syntax, he is usually foreshadowing events. The part I knew Wilson was going to kill Gatsby was at the beginning of the six paragraphs we were supposed to close read tonight. Fitzgerald used words and phrases that portray finality, and leading up to those paragraphs was Wilson saying he was going to find that yellow car, so Fitzgerald portrayed what was going to happen. Some examples of the "finality" words are, "under any circumstance" (p. 161), "disappeared" (p. 161), "he no longer cared" (p. 161), "he had lost the old warm world" (p. 161), and so on. All of these words are used to foreshadow the finality because even though Gatsby doesn't kill himself, his emotion is such that you can tell he is almost relieved that he doesn't have to wait for Daisy to make a decision. A few questions I pose are, what decision do you think Daisy would have made? Would Gatsby be still in love with Daisy now that he has her all to himself? How do you think Daisy will perceive this news?
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