The Great Gatsby Author's style analysis

Fitzgerald's style is defined by his intentional sentence structure and his use of imagery and symbolism.  Fitzgerald's choice of words in The Great Gatsby is quite notable because he knows when to use words like "he remarked decisively" instead of using "he said."  This makes the characters have a much more audible voice and give the book a deeper meaning because it can boast a variety of words.  Fitzgerald often uses a periodic structure for his descriptions and telegraphic sentence structure for his dialogue.  A good example of a periodic sentence is "Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering"(Fitzgerald 35).  This passage is a clear example because the subject is unknown until the very end.  The periodic structure adds suspense and depth to a would-be-normal sentence.  It also helps him take the reader in a particular direction or to a certain conclusion.  Fitzgerald uses telegraphic sentences for dialogue because they make the dialogue feel like normal human speech.

"MOVIE REVIEW SUKA-SUKA: "The Great Gatsby"" Teppy and Her Other Sides. N.p., 07 June 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

The tone goes between gloomy and cheerful.  By using an almost contradictory tone, Fitzgerald
instills the feeling of a more realistic situation.  From the tone of his writing and picking Nick as the narrator, we get a sense that Fitzgerald is speaking through Nick.  Not only does Nick provide a neutral lens through which to view the characters and their actions, it also seems that he occasionally voices Fitzgerald's own thoughts on New York society, which is that it occasionally has "a quality of distortion" (Fitzgerald 176).

"Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Scoop.it. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

Fitzgerald's excessive use of imagery leads to detailed descriptions of expressions and scenes.  He uses symbolism in "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us"(Fitzgerald 180).  The green light symbolizes his dreams and how he fell just short of achieving
them. Another interesting symbol is the Doctor T.J Eckleburg billboard watching people as if it were judging them as God would.