Blog Entry the 3rd: Syntax

Although Fitzgerald does not rely heavily on syntax to convey his ideas, the reader can note that the author was deeply affected by his own words as he wrote them by the way they are arranged and ordered. When Nick Carraway first enters Gatsby's house, the narrator takes the reader through the details of the scene he sees in sequential order: "The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside.... a breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling–and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow in it as the wind does on the sea" (12). The cumulative order, even in Fitzgerald's remarkably lengthy sentences, allows the reader to better understand the author's airy, relaxed tone. The author also uses syntax in an antonymous manner: when Nick narrates, "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since... [paragraph break] 'Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had'" (2). The employment of interrupted order and the line break place the rhetor's most important detail at the end and builds interest in the reader. Oftentimes Fitzgerald will give a terse, normally commonplace action a line of its own on the page, which draws attention to it and encourages the reader to envision the action more vividly than if it had just been words mixed among more words, such as when "Myrtle considered" (22) or "Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand" (24). The author's syntax subtly directs the reader's observation from the beginning of one significant event to the next, and is used for a motley of tones, from ebullient to wistful to romantic to dramatic.