An Analysis – Language Features

First Paragraph

But there was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age.

When Nick, Jorden, and Tom drive over the bridge back toward East and West Egg, Nick uses this (language feature) to describe the difference between Jorden and Daisy. As Daisy is a dreamer, but she holds onto dreams as if they’re going to come true, and she doesn’t know how to let go of them enough to realize that they might not come true or never will. Jorden has the good sense to be able to recognize which dreams can and cannot come true. With this part of writing, it accentuates that Jorden has the sense to know when a dream is impossible and unaccomplishable, and Daisy does not. Daisy longs for dreams she can’t have, like Gatsby, but her personality shows she knows no consequences for what she does or doesn’t do. this links into the meaning of the American dream, about how see-through yet solid it might seem, and how close yet so far away it may look, you can never see it or reach it in full. people at the top of society like Tom and Daisy seem like the people who have accomplished the American dream, yet they are always missing something from their lives to make the full circle of accomplishment. Yes, they have money and wealth, but they do not have the same loyalty in their family that others who may not have money might have. Love is another of something that completes the American dream, especially for men, everyone wants love in their lives, and in the book this is what Gatsby is trying to obtain, but this is the one thing that he cannot have, as Daisy is married and they have spent five years apart and time is moving on regardless of what Gatsby wants to happen.

Second Paragraph

‘I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a — of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?’ She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: ‘An absolute rose?’

When Daisy says this she uses a metaphor to describe Nick, “I love to see you at my table Nick. You remind me of a — of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” with this she calls him a rose. roses are pretty to look at and produce a lovely fresh smell that makes you want to smile. I think Daisy was trying to compliment him in the simplest of ways, to make him feel more comfortable since Tom had just gotten up to answer the phone and the tension had climbed to an uncomfortable level. this was deliberate, as Fitzgerald also describes daisy as a rose, but he says that she is as ‘grotesque as a rose’, meaning that she’s pretty and she draws you in, but underneath she has thorns that prick you if you get to close. you usually observe a rose from the top of the flower, but when you step back and look at the whole flower you can see it’s thorns, and they’re not exceptionally beautiful like the rest of the flower, when you step back and observe daisy, she isn’t as pretty as she seemed. this could also refer to their related blood, after all, Nick is Daisy’s cousin and as the book progresses Nicks other views are revealed to us as his character unfolds and interacts with other characters, he isn’t as innocent as he is at the start of the book just as Daisy’s character changes along with the circumstances.

Allusions

The first allusion Fitzgerald gave us in the book, is that the American dream is unattainable and cannot be reached realistically. Tom and Daisy live at the top of society, seemingly the accomplishers of the American dream, but under the surface, they cannot gain everything they could ever want, perhaps something like love, or loyalty. Gatsby is a good example for this, he has everything the American dream promises except love. He’s had this idea that Daisy is his one true love, and she is the only one who can complete his idea of the American dream.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”

Everyone in the novel has a different idea of what the American dream is and what it looks like, for Tom he has it all and squanders it, but he lacks compassion and the ability to draw people in with his personality, Daisy fills that part in for him with drawing people in with the words she says and her persona. Nick is in search of the American dream, whether he knows it or not, but everyone is searching for the perfect life to live. Even though throughout the novel Fitzgerald never actually explicitly says that the American dream is what they’re all trying to accomplish, he puts it in between the lines.

The second allusion in The Great Gatsby is conveyed by Tom. The idea shared at the dinner table at Tom and Daisy’s house to ‘catch up’, is that if we don’t look out for the white side of the human race “will be utterly submerged”.

“Civilization’s going to pieces,’ broke out Tom Violently. ‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard’? It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved”.

This is a reminder of how much racism was among society back in the 1920s. Racism is still in modern day society as it seems to be a timeless issue that cannot ever be solved in its entirety. Most of the racist remarks come from Tom in the novel, clearly making Tom the bad racist guy man in order to make him even more unliked by his readers. In New York City when Gatsby and Nick are in the car crossing the bridge, they saw two black people in an expensive looking car, and nick made the observation that anything can happen in New York, even black people can be treated differently in a high-end city.