In chapter seven of his book, Fitzgerald conveys a melancholic and miserable tone through diction. On the hottest day of summer, Nick narrates that “the relentless beating heat” shone down on him. The word “relentless” highlights that the heat of the sun was never-ending and was miserable for him to sit through. Nick also states that the sun had made one person “physically sick.” This also creates the feeling of being miserable and sad because when someone is sick they are limited to their activities, thus making everything tedious while sick. Lastly, Fitzgerald states the words, “vaguely disquieting” in an act to create a very gloomy image of the day coming to an end. All together the writer expresses his gloomy feelings through diction and the reader can successfully infer his tone because of the word choice.
Lexi, I liked your idea of how Fitzgerald conveys his melancholic and miserable tone through diction. To elaborate on your idea, I would like to say that all your quotes in this entry were purposely written by the author as an expression of how "relentless" people were to gain prosperity, a goal that was dreamed of by every American. To add on, in my diction blog, I stated the quote, "a valley of ashes"(23). If you think about a volcano,this relates to your quote of the "relentless beating heat" because after "heat" and lava explode out of a volcano, "ashes" fall. The "heat" represents the prosperity and the "ashes" represent the harsh after effects. To conclude, by relating your quote to my quote, it can be seen that Fitzgerald wanted to relate to the boom and depression of America's 1920's through diction based on "the relentless beating heat" and "[the] valley of ashes."
ReplyDeleteI too appreciate the explicit coverage of the heat present in this passage of the novel. Your analysis brought me to the assumption that the weather's role in the story is much more important than previously believed. It is interesting to note that when Gatsby and Daisy's love is rekindled in the scene where the rain stops and the weather clears up for this lays in contrast to the scene where Daisy loses her love for Gatsby. The relentless heat seems to foreshadow the personal hell that Gatsby goes through once he exchanges his feelings for Daisy with Tom.
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