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The Great Gatsby gives insight to the flaws of the real life during the "Roaring
Twenties." Fitzgerald created unforgettable characters and events and refers to the problems of the American wealth and spirituality
on another. Fitzgerald's style of method is to let a part stand for the whole.
In Chapters I and III he lets three parties stand for the whole summer and for the
contrasting values of three different worlds. He also lets small snatches of dialogue represent what is happening at each
party, which is characterized as cinematic. One can imagine that the camera zooms in, gives a grasp of conversation, and then
cuts to another group of people. Nick serves almost as a recording device, writing down what he hears.
Fitzgerald is also very imagistic. The novel is full of images, which are verbal
images appealing to the senses and another peculiarity found is color symbolism that characterize the characters in the novel.
There is water imagery in descriptions of the rain, Long Island Sound, and the swimming pool. Religious imagery is found in
the Godlike eyes of Dr. Eckleburg and the mentioning of incarnation, and grail. There are various colors found in the novel
for example, white signifying purity and honesty, pink for the Gatsby, and yellow for Daisy.
Other color symbols such as the green light are symbolic for their historic or mythic
truths: Daisy's dock or Dr. Eckleburg's eyes, or Dan Cody's yacht. Fitzgerald transforms a realistic social novel into a myth
about America. Another style used in the Great Gatsby is the use of reflections. One of the characters, Nick reflects on the
meaning of action, interpreting the events. It is dense, intellectual, and deliberately difficult because he tries to struggle
with the meanings behind the events he has seen.
Fitzgerald starts the novel in the present, giving a glimpse of the four main locales
of the novel, then he establishes the characters and setting, and then he narrates the main events of the story in Chapters
IV to IX, and uses Chapters IV, VI, and VII to reveal the story of Gatsby's past. Then the past and present come together
in Chapter IX.
Fitzgerald creates a series of events but does not tell us about Gatsby and Daisy's
relationship after they meet at Nick's house in Chapter V, because Nick would have no access to this information.
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