Blog Topic #2: Diction:

           Fitzgerald writes so that the characters are always finding out new things about each other. It seems to be a very secretive group of friends, yet they are often very open with each other. Gatsby and Daisy have an interesting relationship as well as Tom and Myrtle, though they both know about the other’s wrong doings. Tom and Daisy are upset when the topic of either Gatsby or Myrtle comes up. In the event of Tom getting gas at the drugstore Myrtle becomes very jealous because she thinks she sees Daisy. Her face seems, “purposeless and inexplicable,” through the diction, she realizes her selfishness and that she doesn’t have the right to feel this way because Tom isn’t her husband (Fitzgerald 124). This shows the way that people with access to money felt about themselves and the way they felt they should be treated. This applies to all of the self-absorbed characters in the book.

            The idea of jealousy is often used throughout the text because of all of the intermixed relationships and issues. The idea that Myrtle looks at Jordan, whom she thought was Daisy, with eyes, “wide with jealous terror,” proves the idea that though the characters seem to not realize the anger of their counterparts, they are full of anger themselves when they watch the exact same thing happen to them (Fitzgerald 125). It seems that if each of the characters was to step back and realize what they are doing to their neighbors, they will realize that the others are feeling the same hurt they themselves are feeling.  The diction throughout the writing proclaims the feelings without just blatantly stating what the person’s emotion are. He takes the readers on a journey through the ideas of the characters and the passion they feel towards the events going on in their lives. The word choice and sophisticated diction cause the reader to have to think hard to know exactly what is going on with the characters and how they feel about the situations they are going through.