The Use Of Figurative Language In The Works Of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Classic authors persist due to unique qualities that elevate them from their time. F. Scott Fitzgerald found success for his ability to foster “a close relationship with the reader through the voice of his fiction, which was intimate, warm, and witty” (Keshmiri 78). It begs to question how he managed to organize words that would instigate such distinct feelings in the reader. Despite his novels being in prose, they share many qualities with poetry that utilizes precise word choice, figurative language, and phonetics to enhance the reading, and thus his mere prose leaves an impact on the audience that is similar to poetry and at times invokes the surreal and therefore mirrors the complexity of the human mind. His use of this “lyricism pointedly
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Therefore metaphors usually take precedence in poetry as “[o]ne way to talk about abstract concepts is to relate them to now, more concrete objects and experience- to create a conceptual metaphor for what the abstract concept ‘is like’” (Curzan 220). Despite being prose, Fitzgerald’s use of the device fit this description since “[p]oetry especially, often employs novel, more dramatic metaphors that draw our attention and ask us to make new, unfamiliar connections among things and notice new aspects of familiar things” (Curzan 292). Therefore, the use of these devices enhance the emotions that otherwise would not be there and provide greater understanding as to the intimacy that writers felt with Fitzgerald’s writings. Perhaps above verbs and oxymorons, “[a] metaphors role is that of creating the richness of emotion concepts that otherwise would have quite a poor . . . This skeletal structure is then enriched . . . allowing one to conceptualize love in terms of journeys, magic, heat, etc. Metaphor remains important for creating and constituting one’s emotional reality, and conceptualization has actual consequences on experience. (Sauciuc) Metaphor assigns the intangible emotion range to words which a human being struggles to properly to …show more content…
. . As the still ocean paths before the shark.” While never overt, this metaphor likens the complicated emotions of a young man to one of the most dangerous animals on the planet which succeeds at forcing the reader to reconsider this man who may have ulterior intentions. Here the metaphor helps to create a disconnect. The Great Gatsby uses this power of the metaphor to exaggerate the importance of Daisy to Jay. When they were about to kiss:
[Jay’s] heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.
Therefore metaphors usually take precedence in poetry as “[o]ne way to talk about abstract concepts is to relate them to now, more concrete objects and experience- to create a conceptual metaphor for what the abstract concept ‘is like’” (Curzan 220). Despite being prose, Fitzgerald’s use of the device fit this description since “[p]oetry especially, often employs novel, more dramatic metaphors that draw our attention and ask us to make new, unfamiliar connections among things and notice new aspects of familiar things” (Curzan 292). Therefore, the use of these devices enhance the emotions that otherwise would not be there and provide greater understanding as to the intimacy that writers felt with Fitzgerald’s writings. Perhaps above verbs and oxymorons, “[a] metaphors role is that of creating the richness of emotion concepts that otherwise would have quite a poor . . . This skeletal structure is then enriched . . . allowing one to conceptualize love in terms of journeys, magic, heat, etc. Metaphor remains important for creating and constituting one’s emotional reality, and conceptualization has actual consequences on experience. (Sauciuc) Metaphor assigns the intangible emotion range to words which a human being struggles to properly to …show more content…
. . As the still ocean paths before the shark.” While never overt, this metaphor likens the complicated emotions of a young man to one of the most dangerous animals on the planet which succeeds at forcing the reader to reconsider this man who may have ulterior intentions. Here the metaphor helps to create a disconnect. The Great Gatsby uses this power of the metaphor to exaggerate the importance of Daisy to Jay. When they were about to kiss:
[Jay’s] heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete.