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湖北师范学院文理学院外语系学士学位论文（设计）
Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby
1. Introduction
What is the theme of The Great Gatsby? The majority of scholars have discussed it, but little of them discussed it through discuss the rhetorical devices in the novel. We will discuss The Great Gatsby through rhetorical devices in it. We know that what rhetorical perused is good verbal expressive effect. People use speaking, writing and communication to express their feeling and ideas. They do this to complete certain speech acts. It is not purely to be pleased to see or the simply the pursuit of beauty enjoy. The general good rhetorical effect refers to accurate, concise, clear, vivid and moving speaking and it makes people easy to accept. （胡习之，2010，2） All we talked above are positive effect of rhetoric. This paper will talk about the positive effect of rhetoric，mainly on how Fitzgerald uses the rhetoric to depict the characters of people and analyze their life experience and their essence. It will also explain the tragedy of Gatsby, the tragedy of the whole United States during 1920th and what
causes the tragedy.
2. Cultural Backgrounds
2.1 The Life Experience of Fitzgerald and the Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the popular novelists among the 1920’s to 1930’s in the United States of America. He is the typical novelist and detached observer, the leading participant who is struggle all his life for money at that period. He becomes rich through success in literary creation, but his completion is not popular in the depression period, he died before American participation in the World War Ⅱ. His works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age. (Malcolm Cowley and Robert Cowley,1990:12). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He is also a number of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920th. His most famous novel is The Great Gatsby. He had ever express his love to two girl, one abandon him and married rich man, another married him because he become a rich man
湖北师范学院文理学院外语系学士学位论文（设计）
through his writing, he lived with his wife in a very luxury life, the money he earned is not enough for their money spend on party and traveling. He lives happily with his wife but his wife got lunacy in latter years, he becomes a man who is boozy as his not success in writing Tender is the Night at that period and his wife got lunacy, and he died in 1940 for his heart failure. We know that he is the prototype of Gatsby from his similar life to Gatsby.
His writing style is closely related to its theme. His writing style is from the carefully observed in life, carefully selected and the accumulation of satirical details. He reproduced the language and people’s way of thinking of that era accurately. In the section of the novel, he converts from one lively scene of description to the next, let the reader to develop their understanding and imagination of the tedious process. (跃世，1985：7)
2.2 the Introduction of the Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is the most famous novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald，it has ever been played as film in 1929, 1949, 1974, and 2000. It will be played in 2013. The story took place in 1922. During 1920th, the United States becomes a prosper country after World War Ⅰ. This book is written in this period and it received a lot of critical acclaim, it also widely regarded as a “Great American Novel”, it expresses the essence of the era. Unlike his previous works, he changed his expressing his luxury life in the novel before and expresses the essence of that era in this novel. There are many rhetorical devices used to portray the essence of that era and the disillusion of American Dream in the novel.
2.3 American Dream and its Disillusionment
The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.\ （James Truslow Adams，1931：214-215）. We know from it that all men are created equal. The American Dream means that everyone could grow up, receive a good education and career without artificial barriers. And we shouldn’t regard the class, caste, religion, race and ethnicity. In the novel, Gatsby’s American Dream is the seek for money and
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湖北师范学院文理学院外语系学士学位论文（设计）
love of Daisy, As Daisy left him because he is poor, she married a rich and powerful man Tom. He thinks that money can help him to get what he wants so he bought a villa in the west egg and spent large money for the party to attract Daisy’s attention. In Tom’s mind, Daisy is his goodness, she is rich and pure. In order to get Daisy, he quits his belief and becomes a bootlegger. Gatsby is a good man that Nick has ever met, he loves Daisy so much and he can do all for her, even the life. But Daisy married with Tom because Gatsby’s poring even though she had hesitated. Daisy thinks money and position are the most important in her life, she betrayed Gatsby two times. But Gatsby didn’t realize this. He lost his life under the plot between Daisy and Tom. This is the disillusionment of his American Dream.
2. Rhetorical Devices in The Great Gatsby 2.1 Simile
Simile refers to a figure of speech that directly compares two things though some connectives, usually “like,” “as,” “than,” or a verb such as “resembles.” A simile differs from a metaphor in that the latter compares two unlike things by saying that one thing is the other thing.（X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia，2007：594）
There are some similes used in the novel as follows：
1) “In his blue garden men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the star.”（F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：43）, the people in attendance are like moths, the attend Gatsby’s party because they are attracted by the bright lights and commotion, they are attracted because they yearn the richness and the commitment on Gatsby’s party. This reflects people pursue money like moths fly to the fire. They don’t respect the Gatsby and talk something bad to him, they attend the party only for money and free enjoyment.
2) In the sentence that” and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.” （F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：159-160）Daisy is described as “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor”. Silver, a most pure element, gives her an image of beauty and regality, emphasizing her status as an East Egger above the
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湖北师范学院文理学院外语系学士学位论文（设计）
lower people. Daisy is rich and she enjoys this rich, she regards this import as well, she chooses to marry to Tom is also oriented from her thought that money beyond everything. Gatsby doesn’t realize this enough lead to his tragic death.
3) We know from the sentence “They only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house”(F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：10). This image gives the two women a very flighty and airy feel, as if they had no substance, yet also a feel of a great energy. We can see it from Daisy’s circling around Tom and Gatsby and she looks power and money over everything. Jordan’s showing herself to be strength also reflects it. Their later action and character also show this image.
2.2 Metaphor
In Webster’s New World Dictionary, we knew that a metaphor is a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another. (李鑫华，2000：18) It tells us not literal meaning but implied meaning. Let’s discuss the metaphor used in The Great Gatsby.
1. It uses things as metaphor
1) Gatsby’s house: The most characteristic metaphor in The Great Gatsby is Gatsby’s house, what happened in Gatsby’s house is the best metaphor of the whole era of 1920th, as everything happens in the Gatsby mansion is also happened in America at that time. Wealth gained heavily among the period from the World WarⅠ to depression period, it was called “the Jazz Age”. But in domestic, social contradiction becomes sharp. Wrier use “the Gatsby residence” as a metaphor for contemporary American Society, it reveals the serious moral crisis people faced.
2) Gatsby’s green light: The green light appears repeatedly in the novel, the green light represents Gatsby’s ultimate aspiration: to win Daisy’s love. In the sentence “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever.... Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (F. Scott Fitzgerald，1925：159-160). Gatsby realize his he must face that Daisy married to Tom
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