Contradictions In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby by Scott F Fitzgerald is a book about a millionaire named Jay Gatsby who seeks to be with his lover, Daisy, even though she is already married. The book is narrated by Gatsby’s neighbor Nick Caraway, who observes Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy and the conflicts Gatsby faces along the way. Gatsby lives the American dream of being popular and wealthy, while Nick is a shadow who watches Gatsby’s and the other characters’ actions. As an outsider, Nick is able to observe the main characters of the book and use descriptions of the setting, contradictions, and ellipses to prove the main idea that Gatsby is great. First all, Nick’s use of repetition of the descriptions of the setting shows Gatsby’s thoughts and lifestyle. For
Ellipses are “gaps” that serve the purpose of showing that some time has passed after a sentence, or they are used to shorten a statement. Nick uses the ellipses when he says, “[Gatsby’s] life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was… One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight” (Fitzgerald 110). Nick separates two sentences where the first sentence serves the purpose of introducing Gatsby’s first relationship with Daisy, while the second one starts the story about how Gatsby and Daisy met. Additionally, the novel ends with Nick using “first a long dash and then a set of ellipses to suggest a breaking away from the present and a reaching out toward a promised, idealized future” (Bolton 16). Nick ultimately portrays Gatsby as the most ideal person he knows by using ellipses that show his optimism for Gatsby’s success, even after his