The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
“A devastating critique of the American Dream, written by a man who lived it and lost everything.”
Language Register
Formal with poetic flourishes — Latinate vocabulary mixed with Jazz Age slang in dialogue
Syntax Profile
Long, flowing sentences in narration (Fitzgerald averages 20+ words/sentence). Short, clipped dialogue for Tom Buchanan signals his blunt aggression. Nick's narration uses semicolons and em-dashes extensively — a journalistic/literary hybrid voice that feels both intimate and detached.
Figurative Language
Very high — metaphor-heavy, especially around light/dark, water, color (green light, grey valley of ashes, gold/yellow). Fitzgerald rarely uses simile; his metaphors are declarative ('her voice is full of money').
Era-Specific Language
Upper-class British affectation, signals Gatsby's performed identity
Prohibition-era criminal, reveals the illegal wealth underneath glamour
1920s Wall Street speculation culture
Luxury car — status symbol of the new rich
Gatsby's verbal tic when lying — period-appropriate oath
How Characters Speak — Class & Identity
Gatsby
Formal, rehearsed — 'old sport' is an affectation. Avoids contractions. His language is a costume.
Self-made man performing old-money ease. The performance itself is the tragedy.
Tom Buchanan
Blunt, declarative, interrupting. Short sentences. References pseudo-intellectual books to justify his racism.
Old money doesn't need to impress. Tom's language is power through carelessness.
Daisy Buchanan
Musical, breathy, full of charm and empty promises. Her famous 'low, thrilling voice' that's 'full of money.'
Wealth as seduction. Her voice is the siren song of the upper class.
Myrtle Wilson
Shifts register around Tom — tries to sound upper class ('I told that boy about the ice') but slips into vulgarity when angry.
Class performance and its failure. The tragedy of aspiration without access.
Nick Carraway
Literary, reflective, increasingly bitter. Opens with measured objectivity, ends in poetic despair.
The educated middle-class observer — close enough to see, never rich enough to belong.
Narrator's Voice
Nick Carraway: retrospective, literary, increasingly disillusioned. He tells us upfront he's 'inclined to reserve all judgments' — then spends the novel judging everyone. This gap between what Nick claims and what he does is the novel's secret engine.
Tone Progression
Chapters 1-3
Enchanted, curious, seductive
Nick is drawn into the glitter. The prose sparkles. Everything feels possible.
Chapters 4-6
Suspicious, uneasy, revelatory
Gatsby's backstory emerges. The cracks show. Fitzgerald's sentences get longer, more tangled.
Chapters 7-9
Violent, disillusioned, elegiac
The dream collapses. The prose turns cold and precise, then erupts into the famous lyrical ending.
Stylistic Comparisons
- Hemingway — stripped-down, minimal adjectives (opposite approach to same era)
- Faulkner — equally dense but more chaotic, less controlled
- Fitzgerald's own Tender Is the Night — more bitter, less hopeful, more autobiographical
Key Vocabulary from This Book
Notable words used in this text — click to see full definitions