Diction

In The Great Gatsby, a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway narrates his move to New York City and his new life on West Egg. In the beginning of the novel, Fitzgerald uses descriptive diction to create an effective formal tone. In chapter one, Nick describes the Egg Islands: “To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size” (5). The narrator is pointing out the fact that the islands have no physical resemblance and they are only similar in shape and size. Fitzgerald uses diction like “arresting phenomenon” instead of using bland words to sound mature in his writing and to make it more interesting, which effectively creates a formal tone.  Occasionally in the valley of ashes, where the motor road and railroad meet somewhere between West Egg and New York, “a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight” (23). The author efficiently uses alliteration along with the phrase “impenetrable cloud” to portray the imagery of the scene and grasp the readers attention. Instead of adding in average, every-day words, he articulates more complex diction into his sentences to create a proper and academic tone. Nick and Tom go with Myrtle to the city and at their apartment they meet her sister, Catherine who was a “slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white” (30). Diction like “complexion powdered milky white” connotes a soft and delicate image of Catherine’s face and draws the reader in. Again, Fitzgerald’s use of complex and descriptive diction creates a mature, formal tone, which effectively grasps the reader’s attention. Throughout the novel, the rhetor portrays the different tones with the use of flowery, descriptive diction.