Sarah Schmitt
Miss Stress
AP Language and Composition
10 January 2012
The Great Rhetorical Strategies
- · “Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness”(13).
- · “Cried Daisy with tense gayety”(15).
In comparison to many of the books we have read this year, The Great Gatsby is unusually sparse in it’s usage of rhetorical strategies. Still, one of the most common rhetorical strategies utilized by F. Scott Fitzgerald via the narrator Nick Carraway was an oxymoron. Oxymorons are employed so often throughout The Great Gatsby because of the superficiality of so many of the people Nick encounter. The excess of oxymorons that Nick uses in describing his cousin, Daisy indicate to the reader that she has no real personality, as is evident when Nick describes her as having “an expression of unthoughtful sadness” (13). Nick’s harsh way of describing Daisy makes it seem as though she cannot think or truly be empathetic. Likewise, when Nick depicts Daisy as shouting with “tense gayety” it reinforces the reader’s impression of Daisy as a shallow person, obsessed with outward appearances. Daisy is so phony that she would hide her unhappiness in front of her cousin, husband, and closest friend. Daisy’s reputation as the happy, beautiful girl that Gatsby is so in love with is more important to her than her own happiness.
Your formatting is a little strange, but still a very insightful analysis. I agree with Nick's overuse of oxymorons, I recall noticing that when reading on my own. Though I like your overall identification of rhetoric, in the second to last sentence your voice sounds unnatural. A sophisticated writer would never sat that someone is "so phony" today, even if someone like Holden or Nick felt it was appropriate.
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