Gatsby’s Incarnation

In the specified passages on page 104 and pages 117 and 118, Fitzgerald utilizes diction in order to enhance Gatsby’s incarnation. The purposes of these passages is in telling of Gatsby’s dreams and ambitions, while displaying Gatsby’s inability to make the right decision regarding his dreams. The first passage on page 104 sets the background of Gatsby’s life, giving reason behind his desires for wealth and success. “[Gatsby’s] parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people…” and therefore “invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” However Fitzgerald’s purpose of the passage on pages 117 and 118 exemplifies Gatsby’s failure to make the right choice.

In this passage, Fitzgerald begins by foreshadowing by incorporating autumn imagery to depict change. When “Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the