Other ways of interpreting the structure is that it works very much like an essay does. That is, state a statement, explain it and provide examples. For example when Gatsby introduces Meyer Wolfshiem, Nick hears about how a friend of Meyer was killed. Nick could have judged Meyer from the way he described how his friend was killed and of his reaction that he felt no grief after his friend had died. However he didn’t. Then the writer goes on to explain a little more of Meyer’s character. He is suspicious as it is said that “his eyes….roved very slowly all around the room….to inspect the people….would…taken one short glance beneath our own table”. The question is why would a person do this? It looks very suspicious. This is the explanation of Meyer’s character that is he is involved in immoral acts. Then finally two examples that prove what Meyer’s character is like are “he’s the man who fixed the world’s series…” and the other of the “finest specimens of human molars”. These clearly indicate the immoral activities that Meyer might be involved in and thus give support to the statement of him not having shown any grief for his friend’s death. In the crime business nobody is anybody’s friend thus no tears on even your ‘closest friend’s’ death. Since this was written after the First World War it shows that apart from wars, people are generally selfish and will do anything to gain money and power, examples being Meyer and Myrtle.
An important issue to address is the fact that Myrtle is a weaker reflection of Gatsby’s struggle. Like Myrtle his desire is influenced by social considerations. He used to be a poor person with only one pair of clothing which was his “uniform” from the army. After meeting Daisy he too desired a life like hers that is of upper class. This was for two reasons: one he wanted to experience this life which appealed to him greatly and two, he would be of the same class as Daisy and would thus have no problem in loving her and Daisy the same. Myrtle and Gatsby both desired a life, which at the end was the sole reason for Myrtle’s and Gatsby’s death and also to a certain extent of Mr. Wilson’s death.
All the issues explored through relationships and characters would not have been made possible if the language was not flexible. This is seen from the first page where there is ordinary language used to describe mundane things. Then there are words to describe unusual events such as “what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams…… in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men”. As is seen there are many words and phrases within one sentence used for description that would not normally be used such as “abortive”, “elations”, “shortwinded” and “wake of his dreams”. This flexibility in language allows the reader to get a clear and better understanding of the situation as it can be related to something that the reader may be familiar with. If similar sort of words are used to describe different situations or issues, the reader may not comprehend the situation well. The reader may think he understands the situation but the two situations may be very different from each other. So a flexible language is necessary in order to get a clear picture across to the reader. A reader is better able to judge a book, its characters, the situations and the relationships between characters, at the end of the book when the reader has clearly understood the text. However this text is meant for an educated audience only, as it was written in the 1920s. This is also why the text is formal and very little slang is seen. The slang is mostly seen when Meyer is speaking. He says words like “gonnegtion” instead of connection.
Literary features are used very often to make sure that the reader gets a clear picture of what is being written about. Some literary features that were used in “The Great Gatsby” are description, diction and metaphor. The language as mentioned is very flexible, which relates to diction. Diction is the choice of words. Diction in this book is coupled with description to provide a very clear understandable text. Through the adjectives used to describe, images are produced within the readers head. This is related to imagery, another literary feature. These images help the reader to get a further understanding of the novel, as the reader can smell, touch, taste, hear and see for himself/herself the situation, object or person being described. This is only possible because of the wide variety of words used within the text. An example of this is “a valley of ashes - a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens." Another one is when "Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes." As can be seen there is a very wide selection of language that has been integrated into the text that gives anybody a clear understanding, as they relate to normal things. An unfathomable scene such as the “valley of ashes” is made possible to fathom only by referring to an object or another scene, which majority of the people will be familiar with.
The mood or in other terms the emotional level of this piece of prose is steady. As it is a recounting of the events that happened and also considering the fact that Nick is a person who does not judge people and is a neutral person. When he recounts his past and of Gatsby and his past, there is not much emotion filled in it. He recounts it normally, though towards the end it gets a bit emotional, when the deaths of Gatsby, Myrtle and Mr. Wilson are mentioned. The circumstances under which Gatsby died were unusual. Though he had committed crimes, it was not a way that Gatsby should have died.
The purpose of this novel was to gain sympathy for Gatsby, by describing his past, his dreams and his character in depth. Gatsby overall was a very ‘down to earth man’ and not a rich snob as many people with money and power are. Thus such a man dieing is not a cause to celebrate for, as he had never within the novel caused any harm to known or unknown people. So “…Let us learn to show friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead....”
After he is dead, don’t completely forget the person, but “learn to move on, as time waits for no one”.
